24 : Day 7
by Alex28
Summary: Eighteen Monnths after season 6. Jack spent 8 months in prison to get undercover with a possible terrorist and expose the plot that could destroy not only our nation, but the entire world. Will it work? Read to find out! Chapter 9 up, lots of action! R
1. The Aftermath

The Aftermath

The waves crashed over the rocks at the bottom of the cliff, the sun after what seemed to be like his longest day finally started to rise. The smell of the sea filled the air and Jack Bauer stood looking over the cliff, his eyes wandered down to the rocky edges of the cliff. Everything that had happened in the past day began to process in Jack's head. Curtis, his father and brother being the real ones responsible for the death of his friends, Marilynn, Josh, Audrey. Audrey. Jack looked back at the beach house and couldn't help to feel that James Heller was right. Was everything that happened to Audrey his fault? Jack shook his head and took one last look at the cliff. The thoughts of jumping came into mind, but then he began to think to himself. "C'mon Jack, jump. Take the easy way out." Jack grabbed the railing and started to pull himself over. "That's right, just like your father. Take the easy way out." Jack quickly shook his head and stopped moving over the railing. He took one last breath and quickly started walking down the driveway to the beach house. He shoved his hand into his pocket, took out his cell phone and dialed a number, a females voice picked up.

"CTU."

"I need to speak with Chloe O'Brien."

"May I ask who's calling?"

Jack thought about hanging up, then changed his mind.

"Jack Bauer."

"One moment."

On the other end of the phone the female desk worker placed Jack on hold and looked up Nadia's office while hitting a few numbers. Upstairs Nadia picked up the phone,

"Yassir."

"Nadia, Jack Bauer is one the line for Chloe. Should I put him through to you or her?"

Nadia looked at Bill and Bill shook his head, Nadia spoke up.

"Put him through to me."

Bill looked at Nadia,

"Nadia, let him be."

The woman's voice came back over the phone on the desk,

"Your on with Jack."

Nadia cleared her throat,

"Jack it's Nadia."

Jack kind of frowned and rose his voice,

"Damn it, I wanted to speak to Chloe. I'm not coming."

Nadia quickly cut Jack off,

"Jack I'm not going ask you to come back. I want to thank you, I looked the other way and completely ignored you. You were right the whole time and I should of listened to you, because of you a war was averted today and an innocent boy was saved. Good work today."

Jack was a little surprised, but he didn't let it show in his face as he walked down the cement road with cars passing.

"Thank you, did Bill get back to CTU with Cheng?"

Bill spoke up,

"He's here Jack, were interrogating him now."

"Good, Bill. Thank you for everything, you've been a great friend over the years."

Bill smiled,

"Thank you Jack, this country owes you more than you could ever know."

Jack spoke up again,

"I need to speak to Chloe, and Bill I'm going to need to talk to you again after. Can you be reached on your cell?"

"Yeah it will be on."

"Ok, I'll call you in a couple minutes."

Nadia walked over to the phone,

"I'm connecting you to Chloe, Jack."

"Thank you."

Jack took a right down the road while waiting, a few seconds later a familiar voice picked up.

"Jack?"

"Hey Chloe."

There was a pause,

"You're not coming back at all are you?"

Jack kind of sighed,

"No, I'm sorry. It's time I get my life on track, and well CTU is no longer apart of that life."

"I understand Jack, what do you need?"

"I need Kim's address, I want to let her know I'm back."

Chloe thought about telling Jack about her baby, but thought it would be best if she didn't say anything at all.

"One second, I'll pull it up."

"Thank you."

Jack saw a Dunkin Donuts across the street, and sat down in a bench next to him.

"Jack nobody told you about Kim and Chase, did they?"

"No, what?"

"There back together, about two months after you were kidnapped. And well…"

"What?"

"There's something she should tell you, you shouldn't hear it from me. Don't worry though, it's nothing bad."

Jack looked confused,

"Ok?"

"I got the address, it's 32 Sanford St."

Jack smiled,

"Chloe, thank you for everything, you've been a great friend."

"Thank you Jack, you too."

Jack wrote the address in his PDA and said,

"When I get my life back together, I will come visit you and see how you are doing."

"Sounds good Jack, until then. Stay safe."

"I will, thanks Chloe."

Jack hung up and dialed another number, Bill picked up.

"Hey Jack, what did you need?"

Jack fumbled around with his words till it finally came out,

"I'm putting my life together, but I have absolutely no money. I'm normally not the person to ask and I don't feel right doing so, but."

"Say no more Jack, where do you want to meet?"

"There is a Dunkin Donuts on Atlantic Beach Avenue."

"I know it, I'll be there in a half hour."

"Thanks."

Jack fell asleep sitting at the bench.

33 Minutes Later.

Bill's black Toyota pulled up, stirring Jack from his short but restful sleep. Jack looked down at his watch to check the time, it was now 6:42. Jack pushed himself off the bench and Bill got out holding a check book,

"Why don't we get a cup of coffee? I'll buy."

Jack smiled,

"Thanks."

The two men walked into the Dunkin Donuts, Bill getting a large regular coffee with a donut and Jack getting a large regular coffee as well with a chocolate chip muffin. They both down at a table and sipped their coffee and eating their food. Bill looked at Jack,

"How much do you need?"

"I don't know, I just need a little bit to get started, get me out of L.A. About two thousand."

Bill started writing,

"Ten thousand sound good?"

Jack's eyes kind of grew wide,

"I can't take that much from you."

"Jack, you're going to need more than two grand to get started, with this you can at least get your self a used car, some clothes and maybe a place to rent for a little while until you get a job. And I know you'll pay me back."

Bill ripped the check from his book and slid it to Jack,

"Go open up a new bank account and put that in."

Jack reluctantly took the check,

"Thank you Bill."

They both finished their coffee and Bill stood up,

"Chloe told me you were going to see Kim. Need a lift?"

"That'd be great."

"Come on."

Jack stood up, threw away his coffee cup and followed Bill out to his Toyota. The two men got in the truck, and Bill started it up. The radio started to play,

"It's six fifty seven on this beautiful Thursday morning here in Los Angeles. Today is a national day of recovery for the country. As just a little less than a day ago a nuclear bomb was detonated on US, soil and a assassination attempt was made on President Wayne Palmers life. We have been informed how ever, that President Palmer is now expected to make a fully recovery and will retake his title as President within the next few months. For now President Daniels has confirmed the threat has been neutralized, and he will remain President until Palmer is ready."

Jack looked out the window and kind of smiled,

"So, yesterday was Wednesday. I lost track of the days after about two months of being in China."

Bill didn't say anything, he didn't think there was anything to say. He kept on driving. About twenty minutes later they were in front of Kim's house. Jack extended his hand to Bill's,

"Thank you Bill, for everything. Keep in touch."

Bill shook Jack's hand,

"Ten thousand will keep us in touch."

Jack laughed,

"Well, good luck with everything."

"Thanks Jack, you too."

Jack opened the door to the truck and slowly hopped out, quietly shut the door behind him and he took around his surroundings. Everything was so peaceful, like nothing had happened the day before. People in the window's were getting ready for work, some people were already out doing yard work. He walked up to the door and knocked on it lightly, no one answered Jack expected it was because they were still sleeping. Jack knocked a little later and finally he heard Kim's voice on the other end of the door,

"Who is it?"

Jack swallowed hard, remembering the last time Kim saw him, and what she said to him. Kim shouted again,

"Who is it?"

"It's me Kim, it's your father."

Jack heard a latch unlock and the door flew open, Kim stopped and stared at him.

"Dad? I thought you.. I thought…"

"The President authorized a trade to get me out, I worked with CTU and helped them bring down the people who responsible for last night's attack. Now I'm done, I'm changing my life."

Kim lunged herself at her father and hugged him tightly, Jack immediately hugged her back and a tear rolled down his cheek. He held her in his arms for another minute or so until he finally pulled away,

"How have you been sweet heart?"

Kim looked down, still in shock that this was actually happening.

"I've been doing good, real good actually. Me and Chase…"

Before Kim could finish Chase came in the door way holding a baby in his arms. Jack looked at the baby, he knew it wasn't Angela, Chases first kid because the baby was to small. He looked at Kim,

"Yours?"

Kim smiled and nodded her head,

"I had him six months ago, his names Ryan."

Jack smiled and looked at Chase,

"Congratulations."

Chase smiled at Jack,

"Thanks."

Kim looked back up at Jack only to find him still staring at his grandson. Jack couldn't pull his eyes away,

"You want to come in?"

Jack looked at Kim and nodded,

"Yeah."

Two Days Later

Jack looked down at his cup of coffee then back up at the table, Kim and Chase were sitting across from him. Chase spoke up,

"So, what do you want to do? I know you said you wanted to get your life in order."

Jack took a sip of his coffee, looked over at his grandson who was in Kim's arm then looked back at Chase.

"I need to move out of L.A, there is to much here for me to just start over. I can't seem to get away from anything. I mean Audrey's here, CTU. The only thing that is stopping me from leaving is you guys, and Ryan."

Kim smiled, she knew in the two days he had been back that her father had completely fallen in love with his grandson.

"Dad, they invented planes for a reason. Where ever you go, you're always welcome back here."

Chase went out of the room for a minute, then came back holstering his hand gun and grabbing his badge. He had joined the S.W.A.T. unit of the L.A.P.D. Chase looked at Jack,

"When my father passed away, he left me his loft in New York City, it's not to big but it's paid off, I own it. If you want you're more than welcome to stay there. That should be a good starting point."

Chase grabbed his car keys, kissed Kim and Ryan.

"Think about it."

Chase walked out and Jack looked at Kim,

"I think I'll take his offer."

Jack stood up and grabbed his coat,

"Can I borrow your car, I got a loose end I need to tie up."

"Sure."

Kim got up and handed Jack her keys, Jack kissed her and said.

"I'll be back in a few hours."

Jack left the house, got in Kim's Honda Civic and drove off.

Josh Bauer ran down stairs, back pack slung over his shoulder and started to head towards the front door. Before his hand could grasp the door knob he heard his mother yell,

"Josh, where are you going?"

Josh suddenly stopped and turned to face the direction her voice was coming from,

"I'm going to school."

There was a pause and Josh heard his mothers foot steps tapping on the wooden floor, she finally entered the room. Wearing a blue shirt and a pair of gray sweatpants. Josh could tell she had been doing house work,

"Were making arrangements for your fathers funeral today."

Josh looked away,

"I don't care what you do with his body."

Marilynn frowned and embraced her son in a hug,

"Josh, I know what your father did was terribly wrong, but you.."

Josh pulled away from his mothers grasp,

"I told you, I don't care! I don't want anything to do with his funeral."

Josh ran towards the door and flung it open. Only to be stopped by Jack standing in the door way. Josh immediately stopped and looked at Jack,

"Uncle Jack, Mr. Buchanan said you didn't want to be found."

Jack swallowed and looked down at Josh,

"He was right, but I need to talk to your mother. Can you give us a minute?"

Josh looked back at his mom then back at Jack,

"Yeah, I'm going to school anyway."

Josh ran by Jack and Marilynn tried to stop him, but Jack grabbed her.

"Let him go, he needs to get used to normalcy again."

Marilynn looked at Jack disappointed, then finally backed off. Jack closed the door behind him, and walked to the living room with Jack. They both sat down on the tan, micro fiber couch.

"I thought I'd never see you again Jack."

Jack looked around the living room then back at Marilynn,

"After today, you probably wont."

Marilynn slid her hand over Jack's,

"What do you mean?"

Jack looked her straight in the eyes, he was captivated by here beauty. He wanted nothing more than to kiss her right there, but he refrained.

"I'm leaving Los Angeles, there is nothing good here for me. I need to start my life over, I keep getting drawn back in, and I can't anymore. I'm almost forty three years old. I need to start over, I can't be apart of this life style anymore."

Marilynn rubbed Jacks hand slowly, and returned his gaze,

"Jack. I still love you, I want to be apart of your life again. I want there to be an us. Josh needs a real father figure in his life, and you embody everything a father should be…"

Jack stopped her mid sentence,

"Stop, you're feeling lonely because you no longer have Graem in your life. This is the first time you have been alone in a very long ti…"

Marilynn stopped him, lunged forward and kissed him. Jack was surprised but not at all disappointed. Jack returned the kiss, leaning into her hard, he slid his hands down to her waist. Marilynn moved her hands up his chest and started taking off his shirt. She slid it all the way over his head, she then felt his back and felt all his scars. She pulled away, and looked at his chest,

"Oh my god… Jack."

Jack looked down to see all the marks the Chinese had left on his chest, he looked back up at Marilynn and grabbed his shirt.

"I'm sorry, I can't do this. I will be coming to visit Kim every now and then, I'll stop in."

Jack slid his shirt back over his body and walked out.

1 Year Later

The blazing July, New York sun beat down over the city as people went about there day. Rush hour traffic was just starting, people yelling and honking their horn. It took a while but Jack got adjusted to he, and he grew to like it. L.A, and New York were very similar, besides the cold weather and snow. But he liked it. Jack slid his hammer back into his tool belt, grabbed his bottle of Poland spring water, chugged a little bit and put it back down. He picked up measuring tape, and started measuring the frame of the window he was about to install. He had become a carpenter. It was much different, but that's what he went to high school for before becoming apart of the police force. Just as Jack was about to measure his partner came over,

"It's ninety six degrees, lets call it a day man."

Jack looked over at George, and smiled.

"Yeah we probably should, it's about five o'clock anyway."

Jack clipped his tape measurer to his belt and started to walk towards the latter when George spoke again.

"I'm heading over to Smitty's for a few. Meet you there?"

Jack got on the ladder and started climbing down.

"Sure."

Jack got down to the ladder, and walked over to his 1999 Navy Blue Ford Explorer and got in, he looked at his cell phone and realized there was two missed calls not even five minutes old. He went to flip his cell phone open, but before he could even do that the phone rang again. Jack quickly flipped it open and pressed it to his ear,

"Hello?"

"Mr. Bauer?"

"Yes, this is him."

"Please hold for the President Of The United States."

Jack's heart dropped, he hadn't spoken with the President in over a year, and now he is calling him out of the blue. He knew he needed something out of Jack. Jack pulled the phone away from his ear, was ready to close it when he heard Wayne Palmers voice.

"Jack?"

There was a pause,

"Jack?"

Jack still didn't say anything,

"Jack, can you hear me?"

Jack finally pressed the phone back to his ear,

"Hello, Mr. President."

"Jack it's good to hear from you. I heard you moved to New York City and have been doing good."

"Yeah."

There was a pause, then Wayne spoke up.

"Listen, Jack. This is hard for me to ask, and you owe me absolutely nothing. But I need your help."

Jack felt his throat burning, James Heller's words were playing in his head. Jack cannot get away from the game, he will always be in it. He cleared his throat,

"With what sir?"

"There is a prisoner in a New York City prison, his name is Hans Gushov, he is the brother of a high ranking Russian terrorist. His brother Shane Gushov is the leader of the terrorist group Shadow Haven."

"Shadow Haven, I've never heard of them."

"They've been around for a while, but managed to keep quite. But we recently picked up some Intel on them."

"What kind of Intel?"

"Last month we received word, from a VERY credible source that sometime within the next year and a half they are planning to launch a major attack on the U.S. We sent a man into prison last month to try to get information out of Hans. But, our man was killed."

"Was he killed because he was found out?"

"No, a certain inmate had a problem with him. And stabbed him."

Jack looked out the window, he knew what the President was going to ask of him.

"You, want me to go in and try to free Hans, and get in with his terrorist group?"

"Yes, Jack I'll understand if you say no, but you're the only person I can trust with this."

Jack was silent for about a minute, he looked around saw people walking, living out there lives. They were what he always did his job for, people in the world needed him. Jack thought about Kim, Chase, and Ryan. He knew Kim would be pissed, but he knew what needed to be done.

"How credible is this source?"

"Analyst say it's 97 percent credible."

"I'll do it."

The President let out a sigh or reliefe,

"Thank you so much Jack. I'm going to have my people come pick you up, we are going to delete any previous history we have on file of you and create a new persona. You will keep your name. We will put you in there on a small charge, you're going to be in for a year, if you find nothing after a year we will release you, and restore your current status. Since you will be out of work for a year we are putting fifty thousand in your bank, not to be touched by anyone until you get out."

"Thank you, I need to go home and call some people."

"I'll have my people pick you up in an hour?"

"Ok."

One Week Later

The New York Sheriffs van drove down the seemingly empty road towards the prison. Jack sat in the van, ankles cuffed to the floor, hands cuffed together. He wore an orange jump suit, the numbers B754032 on the back. Jack cracked his neck and stared down at the floor, he had been brought up on attempted robber charges, and sentenced to one year. The van came to a halt, a guard opened the door from the outside of the van and light came bursting in. Jack winced, and the guard beside him grabbed his arm,

"Lets go."

Jack's feet were un cuffed from the floor and he stood up. The guards pushed him out of the van, and they walked into the prison. They went through the basic routine, then walked Jack to his cell. The prison was laid out in a stacking formation. Four floors, about twenty cells on each side. They walked Jack up to the third floor and stopped in front of an empty cell,

"Your lucky, you have no cell mate."

The guard looked to the right and yelled,

"Open up on C 19."

The bars slide open, Jack was un cuffed and shoved into the cell. The bars slide closed and the guard said,

"Enjoy your new home."

Jack looked at the cell, all white. One bed, with a thin mattress. Jack put his box of sheets, pillows, blanket and magazines down. He sat on the bed, and took everything in. This is his life for one year, and he knew what had to be done.


	2. 4:00 Pm 5:00 PM

The Following Takes Place Between 4:00 Pm and 5:00 Pm

1 Year And 8 Months Following Day 6

The skies were pitch black as rain poured down onto the busy streets of New York City. This was a New Yorkers worst nightmare, this time of day with all the traffic, and pouring rain. But, that didn't matter at all inside prison. There was no real chance to see the outside world, except when they were working, but on a rainy day like this that didn't happen. Jack Bauer sat inside his cell and looked around. He began to think to himself. "Eight months in this cell, and today I'm finally getting out." Jack stood up and walked over to the bars blocking him from the rest of the prison. He slipped his arms through the bars and looked around. Everyone was in their cell waiting for their daily hour stretch time. Jack peered around and then looked down at his watch, he pulled his arms out of the bars and counted the seconds. "The door should be opening right about.. Now." On command the cell doors slid open and Jack looked around his cell one last time as this was the last time he'd ever see it. He took a deep breath and quickly stepped out. Jack walked over to the railing and leaned on it, looking down to the floor below him. He looked towards the cell all the way to the left on the 2nd floor and saw Hans step out. Hans looked up at Jack and motioned for him to come over to him. Jack slowly pushed himself off the railing and walked over to the stairs leading to the floor below him. He walked down the stairs and was greeted by Hans Gushov. Jack stopped and looked at the man, he had deep blue eyes, short brown hair, about six feet tall. Very tan skin and was wearing a white beater and a pair of orange prison pants, he spoke with a slight Russian accent.

"We have a problem."

Jack sighed and shifted his eyes around his surroundings to see if anyone was listening,

"What is it?'

Hans slowly nodded his head to the left,

"Hannigan."

Jack looked at Joseph Hannigan out of the corner of his eyes, he was a tall black man, very muscular, and bald. Jack looked back at Hans,

"What about him?"

"The guards found out he was dealing in the prison about two months ago. And well, they made a deal with him."

Jack looked confused,

"What does that have to do with us?"

"The guards and the warden don't like me, we all know they think I have something planned because of the connection to my brother."

Jack was starting to get annoyed,

"They have reason to be suspicious, are you surprised they are?"

"No, but the deal they made with Hannigan. The deal was to keep an eye on me and see if they notice anything suspicious, and well were breaking out today. I can't have him snooping around."

Jack looked back at Hannigan,

"Shit."

Hans sighed,

"Yeah, it's bad. That's why your taking him out."

Jack quickly turned his head back towards Hans,

"What did you just say?"

"You're going to kill him before we break."

Jack started to protest,

"You're nuts, he is connected to pretty much everyone in this prison. As soon as I go after him I will have ten people on me."

Hans smiled,

"Jack you forget, I'm very well connected as well. I still have people who don't know were breaking. And people know me and you are good. Once my people see you going after him they will jump in. I have already assured that. I just need you to take out Hannigan. You have been very useful to me in the past eight months, I only trust you with this task."

Jack sighed,

"As long as you wait for me to leave. I need to get out, I have a daughter and grand son I need to see. And after last months incident with the riot I can't afford to be in here another two years."

Hans smiled,

"Jackie boy, I wouldn't leave you behind. Without you this escape wouldn't be possible."

Hans rubbed his shoulder,

"We leave in a half hour, make sure it's done before then."

Hans walked back over to his cell and started talking with some of his crew. Jack walked back up to his cell and leaned against the wall. He rubbed his eyes and whispered under his breath,

"Shit."

President Wayne Palmer sat at his desk, staring at his phone until the sound of his door opening interrupted him out of his zone. He looked up to see Tom Lennox,

"Tom, what's going on?"

"Nothing, I just wanted to know if you've heard from Jack."

Wayne rubbed his face and stood up.

"No, the last I heard from his was last week. He said that the break was suppose to happen Monday, it's now Thursday. I'm getting worried. What if Jack can't get out? There's nothing I can do for him now. After he caused that riot that almost got two officers killed last month he has to serve at least another year until he gets out on parole."

Tom looked at him,

"Sir, you could give him a pardon."

"I know I could Tom, but how is that going to make me look if I give a convicted criminal a pardon?"

Tom walked closer to Wayne and leaned against his desk,

"Sir, this is Jack Bauer. I thought you'd do anything for him."

"I know, it's just.. This administration has had enough mistakes, just when everything started getting normal after the nuke attacks, I can't just go and release what the public thinks is a convicted criminal."

Wayne sighed and Tom pushed him self off the desk,

"You picked Jack Bauer for a reason, he will get out of that prison."

Tom walked out of the room and Wayne slammed his fist against the desk.

"Damn it!"

Wayne looked down at the picture of his brother,

"You would of never have let it come to this. How could I do this? Ruin the life of the man who has done so much for this country. Out of one prison and into another. What the hell was I thinking?"

A group of well armed men, all dressed in navy blue jump suits, tactical vests and standard military issued M16's all huddled around looking over a blue print of the current building they were getting ready to invade. Chase Edmunds looked up at his team, it consisted of three other officers, as well as him self. Chase cleared his throat and began to speak,

"You all know your entrance points, this is to be as quick as possible. This could be the biggest bust of our careers boys. Remember, we need the proof that this is in fact Ortegas meth lab. Once we have proof, we get our warrant to arrest him. You guys ready?"

The group of men surrounding him all nodded and Chase nodded with them.

"Good. Everyone go to your entrance point"

The three men went their own separate way and Chase quickly, but quietly hustled up the metal grated stairs to reach the roof of the building they were about to infiltrate. He pulled his goggles down over his eyes, and like before every major infiltration he had done in his S.W.A.T. career be thought about Kim and Ryan. He then tied a rope on to a sturdy beam and made sure it was securely clipped to his belt. Chase walked over to the glass sun roof and unlocked the hatch, slowly pulling the window up. He clicked the button on his microphone,

"Go, go go!'

Chase quickly dropped the rope down to the bottom floor of the building, grabbed onto the rope and jumped into the window and slid down the rope. While sliding down he released one hand from the rope, grabbed a smoke grenade, pulled the pin with his mouth and let it drop to the bottom floor. He felt his feet hit the cold cement of the warehouse, he drew his M16 and squinted his eyes as the smoke grenades began to spew out their shadowy cover.

"Thermals on."

Chase clicked a button on his goggles and scanned the whole entire room. There was not a single person inside. Had they gotten wrong intel? No, they couldn't of. Chase quickly walked forward, M16 in hand and checked every corner of his room. There were no shouts from his other team members, or gunfire. He knew the warehouse was empty. He pressed the button on his microphone again,

"Clear."

"This is Davis, all clear."

"This is Fiouri, all clear."

"Marcotte, all clear."

Chase left his room and walked out into the main warehouse area, his teammates all did the same. Chase took off his tactical helmet and slammed it against the ground.

"FUCK!"

He spun around looking all over the place as the smoke cleared. The room was pretty much empty.

"Shit, the intel was fucking bad."

Chase closed his eyes and rubbed his head,

"Wait, wait. Chase come here."

Chase gripped his M16 tightly and walked to the room that demos expert Michael Davis was located.

"What?"

Chase looked at what Michael was looking at and his eyes grew wide. Four computers set up in a row, three black boards with blue prints of a building attached to them. He knew this just became more than a drug raid. He worked for CTU long enough to know something much bigger was going on here. Davis looked back up at him,

"What do you make of it?"

Chase peered down at one of the computer screens then back up at blue prints.

"Well, the computers have information on New York all over them. These blue prints look like a multi level building of some sort. If I had to guess, an attack of some sort on New Yor…."

Before he could finish his sentence gun fire broke out in the main area of the warehouse. Chase quickly pulled Davis up off his knees and leaned against the wall leading out to the main room. He quickly leaned his head out and saw Marcotte and Fiouri laying on the ground. Six men in black ski masks were standing around them.

"Who else is here?!"

No one answered then a gunshot was fired. Chase watched as Fiouri's body  
suddenly become lifeless with a bullet hole straight in his forehead.

"Fuck" Chase whispered under his breath.

One of the men put his gun to Marcotte's head,

"Who else is here?"

Marcotte looked up at the man with the gun,

"I'm, I'm…"

The man shoved the handgun into his head harder,

"You're what?"

"I'm not sayin shit."

Marcotte shoved his foot into the mans chest and kicked him away. He went to push himself up but before he could the rest of the five men all unloaded shots from their guns into his body. Chase leaned his head back into the room and looked at Davis.

"There are six of them, Marcotte and Fiouri are dead."

Davis looked at Chase,

"Shit what do we do?"

Chase scanned the room to see if there was any exit. They were trapped,

"We fight."

Chase quickly dove out from around the corner and fired his M16, piercing one of the men in the chest four or five times sending his body slumping to the floor. Chase then dove behind a wooden crate. Davis stuck his body out to follow, Chase looked at him.

"Davis.. No!"

Before Davis could take heed to Chase's warning, his body was rattled with bullets, his body flew against the wall and slid down it. Chase started breathing heavily, leaning against the crate. He knew he wouldn't make it out fighting. Chase threw his guns out to the side and rose out from behind the crate with hands in the air.

"I surrender."

The men all looked at him and one shouted,

"Kill him!"

Before anyone acted, who seemed to be he leader of the group spoke up,

"No. We may need a hostage, take him alive. We'll bring him to New York and ask what Shane wants to do with him. Hans should be out of jail within in the next two hours. We need to make our way to New York now. Mikhail I want you to destroy all or computers and grab the blue prints."

The man who was talking walked up to Chase and hit him in the back of his head with the butt of his gun sending him crashing to the ground.

4:23:04

Thoughts kept running through his mind, thoughts from the life he used to live. It was all coming back to him. The memory that kept replaying over and over in his head was his last prison break out. When he had to break Ramon Salazar out of jail. All the trouble he had cause. He remembered him and the officer playing Russian roulette. He tried to push the thought out of his head, but he couldn't do it. "Pull it together" Jack was uttering thoes words over and over as he thought he was about to start crying. Before tears could be produced he heard the familiar Russian accent,

"Jackie boy."

Jack looked up to see his "friend" Hans standing in his cell door way.

"What?"

Hans looked around his cell,

"Damn, you keep this shit clean. Can I come in?"

Every time the man spoke Jack wanted nothing more to grab him by his throat and rip out his voice box. He hated his voice, it was the voice of the man who made him loose eight months of what was becoming a normal life for Jack Bauer. But, Jack knew what had to be done, especially today. He cleared his throat, and kept his cool.

"Yeah, sure."

Jack stood up and met Hans' gaze,

"What's up?"

Hans leaned up against the pure white cell wall and looked at Jack.

"You killing Hannigan gives us an opportunity."

"How so?"

"You kill him right out here in gen-pop, it will start a riot. They will get the riot team in here and throw us all in our cells. They will then issue a lock down, before they start.."

Jack interrupted him,

"I know, they don't check cells for three hours. Then they start asking questions, so that gives us three hours to escape. Your logic is flawed though."

Han's smiled,

"How so?"

"Somebody will rat me out, Hannigan is connected to so many people."

"But you're connected to me Jackie boy, and I pretty much run this prison. Have you forgotten?"

Jack processed the conversation in his head. Han's was right. He pretty much did run the prison, and that worked to Jack's advantage the past eight months. Jack looked up at Hans,

"Alright, sounds good."

Hans smiled and extended his hand out to Jack,

"What's this?"

Hans slide a six inch knife out of his sleeve,

"Use this."

Jack grabbed the knife and looked at Hans,

"Where did you get this?"

"Come on Jack, I'm connected."

Jack kind of smiled,

"Yeah."

Hans turned and looked down towards Hannigan,

"It's time Jack."

Jack stood up and stopped behind Hans.

"We'll be out of here within the hour Jack."

Hans turned and looked at the wall the bed was up against,

"I will be busting through that wall to get you. Be ready."

Jack looked at the wall, in the past two months Hans managed to dig a hole in his wall, and get into the ventilation / water pipe passages in the prison. He dug a hole to the very edge of Jack's wall. All they had to do was kick it a couple of times and the wall would come crumbling down. He did the same for two other men, two men that Han's had become friends with. Roger Cross, and Miles Grondin. Two small time crooks, but they proved useful to Hans during his sentence, and Hans wanted them out for their loyalty. Jack thought of Han's plan, they get out on the street, run about a mile west and board a chopper. The chopper will then take them to his brothers warehouse. Jack began to think about Shane. Eight months gone to catch him, he better prove useful.

"Jack, go. Now."

Jack snapped out of it, slid the knife into his pocket and stepped out of his cell. He started to feel nervous. "C'mon, you've taken out terrorist, and whole groups of men. Your afraid of one little street thug.?"

Jack looked down at Hannigan and continued talking to him self, "Yeah, except he aint little."

Jack felt his feet hit the metal grated stairs and began to walk down to the second floor. Jack got over to Hannigan's cell only to be stopped by two other black men.

"What do you want with Hannigan?"

Jack reached into his back pocket and pulled out a wad of money,

"I have some business to attend to."

One of the men turned back and looked into his cell,

"Hannigan, Bauer is out here. He's got cash."

Hannigan looked up from the bag he was measuring out,

"Bauer? Jack Bauer?"

"Yeah."

"Let him in."

Hannigan wrapped the bag up and slid it under his mattress, he saw Jack Bauer enter the door way and he smiled.

"Jack Bauer, does Hans know you're here?"

Jack looked around,

"No, that's why I need to make this quick."

Hannigan smiled,

"What can I do for you?"

"I need something to take my mind off the new two year bid I'm facing."

Hannigan smiled,

"What do you need, weed, KP's? You know, I can even get some heroine in here. Might take a week but you need it man, I can get it."

Jack threw the wad of money at him, and rolled up the sleeve on his shirt. He showed Hannigan the small puncture wounds in his arm, they were hard to notice but if you looked hard enough you could make them out.

"Heroine would be good."

Hannigan smiled and took Jack's money,

"Jack Bauer a junkie? I always thought you were the clean boy of the prison."

"Yeah, well you thought wrong. How longs it gonna take man?"

Hannigan looked down and started counting Jack's money. Jack slipped the knife out of his pocket, lunged forward and inserted it straight into Hanigans throat. Hannigan tried letting out a yell but Jack jerked the knife, so it destroyed his voice box. Jack smashed his head against the wall and ripped the knife out of his throat. Jack felt a blow to the back of his head. He fell to the ground and quickly turned to see one of Hannigan's lackeys coming down on him with a knife. Jack quickly grabbed the mans wrist and broke it, kicked his ankle, breaking that as well and smashed his head on his knee. Jack looked outside to see the riot starting. Jack's head started to throb, he rubbed the back of his head and checked his surroundings. Hannigan was dead, the blood that was spilled all over the floor was proof to that. And his thug was knocked out. Jack grabbed the knife and looked at his clothes, there was no blood on him. If he got to his cell before the riot team came in he would be fine. Jack quickly ran out of the cell, only to be blind sided by an unknown figure. Jack crashed against the ground, and felt a pair of hands starting to tighten around his neck. Jack tried moving but felt who ever was on top of him knee dig into his back. Jack grunted in pain and slowly started to become unconscious. Before Jack completely blacked out, he felt the weight lift off his back and air started entering his lungs again. Jack gasped hard, trying to catch any air he could and started to cough. He rolled over to see Han's with his hand extended out to help Jack up.

"Come on."

Jack grabbed his hand and pulled him self up. Hans looked at him,

"Good job, get back to your cell. I'll see ya in few."

Jack turned and jogged to the stairs that led up to the upper level, he turned into his cell and watched as the riot team started swarming in to break up the crowd. They were using batons, to try and separate the prisoners. They all came in full force and started swinging away. The prisoners were not breaking up, they were fighting back at the guards. Jack noticed one particular incident, a guard went to swing at one of the in mates, but he get blind sided by another in mate and went down to the ground. Jack wanted to go down and help him, but he knew he couldn't. So, he had to watch as the helpless guard got beat. When the batons failed, the tear gas came out. The greenish white gas spewed out all through out the prison, and that's when the prisoners finally started going back into their cells.

President Palmer, was writing on a piece of paper when he heard a knock at the door.

"Come in."

The door opened up, Palmer looked up to see Tom Lennox standing in the door way.

"Sir, I just received some good news. Well, seeing the situation were in it's good news."

"What is it Tom?"

"The prison Jack Bauer is in."

Wayne suddenly became extremely interested and put down the pen,

"Yeah?"

"A riot was just reported."

Wayne smiled,

"Good, so that means Jack is escaping."

"We don't know who started it. We were monitoring that prison like you requested, and they pressed their panic button which they only use during a riot. So if we assume the best, it's Bauer using the riot to his advantage to get out."

"Good, good. Keep me updated."

"Will do, sir."

Tom turned and walked out of the room.

4:46:32

Blackness was all he could see, he could his body shift around, almost as it was hitting bumps. His head was splitting with pain, and his arms and legs were taped together. When Chase Edmunds came through he immediately knew what was going on, he was in the back of a car. Taken hostage. Chase tried adjusting to the darkness but was having no luck. The only light he had was from a small crack in the trunk. Chase wiggled his body around to see if he could find anything sharp. He found nothing at first, but as he felt around a little bit more there was a small piece of metal sticking out from somewhere. He slide his body closer to the piece of metal and started to rub the tape that bound his hands up against it. After about thirty seconds the tape started to give away. He pulled his hands apart as hard as he could and the tape finally came free. Chase pulled his hands out in front of him, ripping the remaining tape off his wrist. He searched all his pockets, and found that everything was gone. He reached down to his ankles and started working at the tape binding his legs together. All of a sudden the car came to stop. Chase froze instantly, and waited to hear what was going on. He heard a loud engine roaring outside, and people talking. He quickly ripped the tape off his ankles, but got back in a position to make it look like he was still tied up. He put his head down and closed his eyes. One of the muffled voices got closer and Chase heard the sound of a key being inserted into a lock. As soon as the door flung open, Chase leapt forward tackling the man in front of him to the ground. Chase hit the ground with a thud, grabbed the mans hand gun, pulled him up against him and put the gun to his captors head. Chase looked around and saw the same six people, still masked all staring at him and a plane starting up behind them. They all drew their guns and a show down ensued.

"Drop your weapons or he dies!"

One of the men walked forward, it was the bigger man that knocked him out before.

"Mr. Edmunds, put him down."

Chase looked at him,

"How do you know my name?"

"It's not hard to look up your badge number, now I'm going to ask you one more time. Let him go."

Chase looked all around, he knew he had no chance, but he didn't give up.

"I will let him go when you guarantee I can safely leave."

The man in front of him aimed his pistol straight forward and fired a single shot. Blood, brains, and gore from the man Chase was holding splattered all over Chases body and face. The body suddenly became limp in Chase's arms. Chase eyes grew wide in shock,

"He was expendable, and so are you. Put the body down now, drop the gun and get on the god damned plane."

So many thoughts were running through Chase's head. The main thought, why was he still alive? Chase put the gun down and started walking forward and the bigger man grabbed him

"Pull that shit again and you will suffer the same fate my friend just did."

Chase felt shivers down his whole body. He swallowed hard and started walking towards the airplane.

The bar doors slammed shut, and an eerie calm came over the whole entire prison. Everyone was quite now, the riot guards broke everything up fairly quick. In just a few minutes Hans would come busting through his cell wall and they would be making his escape, or so he thought. The silence was quickly broken when a guard started yelling.

"Open up on B10, now!"

Jack's eyes grew wide, that was Hans' cell number. Jack jumped up from his bead, went over to the door and looked over the railing. He saw a guard pulling him out and Hans' started yelling,

"What the hell are you doing?"

The guard put him in cuffs and feet shackles,

"You were responsible for the death of Hannigan, one of his boys ratted you out. You're going in the hole for four weeks."

Hans tried arguing but the guards kept dragging him away from the gen-pop area. Jack leaned his back against the cell and slide down it, he brought his knees to his head and closed his eyes. He slowly rocked his head back and forth thinking to him self. He kept rocking his head back and forth thinking over and over again about what he could do, he finally brought his head up to look at where Hans was suppose to come through. Jack stood up and looked around his cell, he knew what he had to do. Jack grabbed his picture of Ryan and Kim and laid down on his bed. He quietly brought his feet to the wall where Han's had dug and started pushing on it as hard as he could. He kept pushing and pushing as hard as he could but the wall wouldn't budge. Finally he brought booth feet back, and with as much force and speed as he could slammed them both against the wall and the wall came crumbling down. Jack stopped to make sure he didn't hear any guards coming. From what he gathered, no one had heard him. He gave his cell one final look and entered the small man made hole.

4:59:58

4:59:49

5:00:00


	3. 5:00 PM 6:00 PM

****

The Following Takes Place Between 5:00 PM and 6:00 PM

The rain outside pattered on the ceiling above, the room was dark and there was a slight chill in the air. He was surprised it wasn't colder, it was actually a pretty warm day for a rainy January day in New York City. He removed his head from his knees and looked around, he then began to talk to him self.

"Jack will get me out, I know he will."

Hans tried to adjust to the light, but couldn't. He sighed to himself,

"I hope."

Jack's feet hit the metal grates and he looked around his surroundings. There were pipes everywhere around him. He was in a long hall like area, with doors on either end. Jack kept looking around trying to figure out where to go. Hans said he had entered a ventilation shaft, and marked the insides of them incase something like this happened and they had gotten separated. Jack walked down towards the right end of the hall and looked above him. He wasn't seeing anything at all, he started walking back towards the way he came and with one step he felt the metal grates shift underneath his weight. Jack quickly stopped and looked down at his feet, he put his weight down on the grate and notice that it once again shifted. Jack knelt down and examined the grate, he saw under it and slightly to the right there was an opening for a ventilation shaft. It was clearly the shaft that Hans had been using. He lifted up on the grate and it easily pulled away. Jack sat the grate aside and dropped down onto a pipe that was below the grates. Jack had to keep his balance, it was a far drop down to the bottom. He thought he was above the laundry area. He stood up on the pipe and grabbed the grate that he just removed and put it back in place. He then sat him self on and looked at the vent shaft that he was about to crawl through. It was just big enough to fit in. Jack never liked tight spaces, but now was not the time to think about it. Eights months of his life, and it all came down to this. He steadily moved forward, his arms reached the vent and he lunged his body forward. He got most of his body into the vent but his legs were hanging. He pulled himself completely in and looked around. Hans had indeed marked the vents. There were two paths he could take, either go straight or go left. To the left was to get to Miles and Roger's cell, and forward was towards the roof they wanted to exit through. That was the way Jack wanted to go. Han's had said their exit was near the wardens office. Jack looked forward and started to crawl.

Chase looked around the small room of the airplane he was in. His head was still throbbing from the last time he was knocked out and he was extremely thirsty. He started thinking about his team and everything they had worked for in the past few months. They thought they were busting a dealer, but they uncovered something much more. He swore to himself that his friends would not have died in vein. He would figure out what was going on, there was just one thing stopping him. Chase looked down at his wrist that was cuffed to the side of that chair he was sitting on, and the chair was bolted to the floor. While he was looking down he heard the click of a lock and he looked up, in the door way stood Manny Ortega. The man he and his team had gone in after.

"You son of a bitch."

Manny walked into the room and smiled,

"Shut up."

Chase looked at him with a cold glare in his eyes,

"You're a dealer, not a terrorist."

"Or so you think, our plan worked."

"And what plan is that?"

The plane shifted, and the engine started roaring. Manny smiled,

"You don't need to know much, I work with a terrorist organization. I knew you feds were already watching me for suspicion of drug distribution, but you targeted the wrong Ortega, that would be my brother. But I took your mistake to my advantage. I figured if you thought of me as a dealer it would keep your noses out of my real trade. But you guys dug deeper then expected, kudos."

Manny walked forward and smiled,

"Anyway, that's a little bit more than you need to know. I read your file, we know your dangerous. So I came to make this trip a little easier on all of us."

Manny quickly pulled out a vile and injected it into Chase's neck. Chase tried struggling but couldn't do much of anything. He quickly started to black out, his head went limp. And Manny smiled,

"Nighty, night Mr. Edmunds."

Manny walked out of the room and back into the main section of the airplane.

Jack looked above and below him. The shaft up lead to the roof they were suppose to escape on, below him led to the lobby that led to the wardens office, and that was exactly where Jack wanted to go. Jack put both arms to the side of the ducts and scooted to the edge of the drop off. The shafts had gotten bigger as he moved forward so he now had room to sit him self up. He firmly placed his arms against either side of the shaft and dangled himself over the drop off. He then stuck his legs out in front of him and slid down the shaft a little bit. His back was pressed up to the vent and so were his legs. He kept scooting down until he finally came to the end of the vent. He looked down through it and noticed two guards. One was in front of one door leading into the wardens office, one was standing in front of another leading out into the prison. Jack studied the room and tried thinking of the best way to pull this off. He realized there was no easy way to do it and just had to go in with force. He sighed heavily, and prepared himself for the chaos that was about to ensue. He let his legs go and he came crashing down through the vent. He fell over and smacked his shoulder against the floor. He flinched because of the pain but immediately pushed him self back up and tackled the guard in front of him to the floor. He grabbed the guards tazer, pulled himself and the guard up, putting the guard in front of him and aiming the tazer gun at the other guard standing in front of the wardens office.

"Don't move!" Jack screamed at the other guard,

"How the hell did you get out of your cell?"

"No questions, I need to see the warden now!"

The guard looked around,

"Not happening."

"I will not hesitate to use this, you have no idea what your dealing with. This is more than an escaped convict, the security of this nation is in danger. I need to speak with the warden, now!"

Jack tightened his grip around the officer he had in his possession to try and put fear into him and it worked. He could barley talked but he managed to get the words out,

"Do, what he says Ron, let him see the warden."

Ron hesitated and looked them both,

"Fine."

Ron turned to the door, inserted his key into the door and unlocked it. Jack shot the stun gun at him and he immediately dropped to the ground. Jack then knocked the man he had unconscious and ran into the wardens office aiming the stun gun right at him. The warden was a tall skinny older man. About six two, one hundred and eighty pounds, light hair and blue eyes. He looked up at Jack and his eyes grew wide,

"What the hell is the meaning of this, Bauer?"

"I have something to explain to you, and you have to listen."

"Jesus fucking Christ, are you insane. You're already doing two more years because of your riot last month, what the hell else do you want on your bid?"

"I have something I'm going to tell you, and you're going to listen to me. Do you understand?"

The warden closed his eyes,

"I'll give you one minute until I call for the guards."

Jack cleared his throat,

"My name is Jack Bauer as you already know, I am a federal agent. I have been in Government agencies for about twenty years now including the army, CTU, and I was once the assistant to Secretary Of State James Heller. Almost two years ago after the L.A. nuke incident I had decided to start my life over. About a year after I moved out to New York City, President Palmer contacted me and told me about Hans, and his brothers terrorist organization, and the fact they had good Intel that they are planning a terrorist attack sometime very soon. He and the White House set it up so I had a criminal record, and was put in this prison to get close to Hans and find out what his brother had planned. We were suppose to break out today, and now that he's in the hole that makes the whole eights months I spent here a waste."

The warden wanted to laugh in Jack's face, but he indulged Jack for a minute.

"Even if this was true, why would I believe you?"

"Put the phone on speaker and call the White House right now, I can give you the number."

The warden thought it over for a second and looked up at Jack, hitting the conference call button.

"What's the number?"

Jack told him the number, he dialed it and the phone rang.

It rang for a few seconds then someone finally picked up,

"Tom Lennox."

Jack cleared his throat,

"Tom it's Jack Bauer."

Jack could hear the excitement in his voice,

"Jack we have been waiting for your call, are you out?"

"Not exactly, there has been a few complications. I need to speak with the President."

"Of course, of course. Give me one second I will transfer you."

Jack looked at the warden,

"That enough?"

"Not yet, I want to hear the President."

Wayne's voice came through the receiver with more excitement in his voice then Tom,

"Jack, please tell me you got out?"

"Not yet Mr. President, there has been complications."

Wayne sighed,

"What happened?"

"Long story short, the warden had someone watching Hans, and we couldn't have him watching us while we were suppose to be breaking out. Hans had me kill him, the mans name was Hannigan. His and Hans' group were enemies, so once I took him out one of Hannigan's boys ratted and told the guards that it was Hans. Hans is now in solitary confinement for a month. I had to use the tunnels we built to reach the wardens office. The only way I can pull this off now is to get him involved, you are on speaker phone with him now."

"This is bad Jack, no one was suppose to know about this."

"Mr. President with all due respect it was the only choice I had, I have a plan but I need you to tell the warden to comply with everything I ask him to do."

"Warden?"

"Yes, Mr. President?"

"You will give Jack Bauer anything he needs and will do anything he asks, is this understood?"

"Yes, sir."

"Jack?"

"Yes, sir?"

"Did Han's happen to mention what kind of attack his brother is planning?"

"No, he did mention slight hints at an attack thought. I need to get going, I will fill you in once we are out."

"Ok Jack."

Jack nodded to the warden and he hung up the phone,

"So, what is your plan Agent Bauer?"

Jack looked around the room,

"We have to stage a force break out. You need to get a team together, and get them in here before I start explaining it. Get your riot response team in here."

"Will do."

"Also, I need a PDA with the blue prints of the prison, and two handguns."

The warden looked at Jack,

"Who are you going to use the guns on?"

"The response team, make sure they are well protected. I will only soot at their chests."

The warden looked at Jack wit concern in his eyes,

"Make sure not one of the convicts has access to a gun, I only want you firing on my men."

"Don't worry."

The warden picked up the phone and made a phone call, within one minute the riot team was in the room, ready to informed on the situation. Jack looked around the room,

"Here is how it's going to go down. Two other inmates are suppose to be escaping with Hans and my self, I'm going to get back in the air ducts and go to their cell and break them out. At the point we will then move to the solitary confinement area. From there I will come through the shaft, take one of the guards hostage and order them to unlock his cell. We will get back in the ducts and make our way to the roof. Once we are on the roof a helicopter is suppose to fly above and pick us up. So we need to make this work, make sure no one hinders out progress, just go after us like you would in a normal situation, but you will fail at recapturing us. Am I understood?"

Everyone in the room nodded and Jack looked at the warden,

"Advise all the other guards of the situation, five minutes from when I leave I want you to sound the alarm ,and make an announcement over the PA that three inmates have escaped, and you are ordering a lock down."

The warden nodded and said,

"Will do. Can you make sure the President calls us and advises us of the situation? Were just as involved as you are now and I would like to know what's going on."

Jack looked him in the eyes,

"I'll do the best I can, thank you for your co operation."

Jack looked around the room,

"Any questions?"

No one said anything,

"Then let's move out."

Tom Lennox re-entered the oval office.

"So, what's the situation with Bauer?"

"Long story short, Hans is in solitary confinement, Jack got through to the wardens office, and talked the warden into calling me. They are staging a force break out now, Jack is going to call me when he gets the chance."

Tom looked around the room and sighed heavily,

"I don't like it, a lot of people must know about the threat now, and that's not a good thing."

Palmer looked up a Tom,

"I know Tom, but there was no other choice. He was locked up in solitary for a month, how else was Jack suppose to get out. I mean, he could of got out on his own then contacted us and we could of worked on a plan to get Hans out, but we don't know how long we have until this attack happens."

Tom kind of mumbled,

"Or if it's even going to happen."

"You think our Intel is bad?"

Tom shifted a little bit,

"Not necessarily, I am a bit skeptical though. We haven't heard anything in over eight months on this situation, lets just hope Jack finds something when he gets out."

Wayne turned in his chair, and looked out the window to gaze upon the huge yard of the White House.

"Yeah."

"Sir, there is another small issue, nothing major."

Wayne turned around and looked at Tom,

"What is it?"

"The media caught wind that you are in fact proposing your bill to lower the gas prices, do you want to deliver a statement?"

Wayne thought it over for a minute,

"Tell them that I am in fact considering regulating the gas prices. Only considering, nothing more."

"Will do sir."

5:38:34

Jack grunted as he forced himself through one of the smaller areas of the ventilation system, this was one of most awkward ventilation systems he had been in. Some parts were small, some were big. Jack shook his head and knew he had little time to get distracted. He looked at the PDA he had to check the time, he only had about a minute before the warden would sound the alarm. He shoved the PDA into his pocket and kept crawling forward. Jack finally came to the hole that Hans had dug to get to Miles and Roger's cell. Jack came to the end of the tunnel, and gave it a couple of taps with the silenced 9 mm handgun he had received from the warden. Jack would of preferred a Sig Sauer, but he would make do. After the warning taps Jack brought his legs back like had had previously and slammed them against the wall, the wall caved in and Jack pulled himself into the cell. Roger and Miles both looked at Jack, confused.

"Jack? Where's Hans?"

"Someone pinned Hannigans death on Hans, he's in the hole. Were going to break him out?"

"And how do you plan on doing that?" Miles retorted sarcastically.

Jack pulled out his handgun,

"I made a pit stop to the infirmary. Only had enough time to grab two, but it should be enough."

Roger smiled, Roger was the more action oriented of the duo.

"I like it, I like it. A force break out eh?"

Jack nodded,

"We will be getting out the same way we had planned, but I just need to get Hans out. I need you guys to go to the ventilation shaft leading to the roof. We can get out much quicker with two people roaming through the tunnels instead of four. Just wait at the shaft until we get back, understood?'"

Miles didn't like Jack pushing them around,

"If I recall correctly, we were apart of Han's group before you. Why are you ordering us?"

Jack looked at Miles,

"Damnit Miles, now isn't the time. I've been in the shafts, I know how to get to the hole. It'd be easier."

Roger put his hand on Miles' shoulder,

"He's right man, lets go."

And with those words, alarms started blaring all throughout the prison and the wardens voice boomed over the PA,

"Inmate Jack Bauer has escaped from his cell, I repeat inmate Jack Bauer has escaped from his cell, find him at all costs. A full lock down is in effect."

This announcement was followed by the cheering of all the inmates in the gen pop area, Jack looked at the two men,

"Shit, we need to move and we need to move now! Get to the ventilation shaft and move now. If were not there by five fifty eight, go with out us and get on the chopper."

Roger and Miles nodded and got in the tunnel. Jack looked around the cell, then inside the tunnel and took a deep breath. It all came down to this. Jack entered the tunnel and started crawling forward. In front of him the two men crawled, and they came to a point where they could go right or left, Jack yelled.

"Go right, then take your next right and it will lead you to the roof ventilation shaft."

The two men went right and Jack pulled out his PDA and loaded up the blue print of the prison. He looked at the map, if he went down the shaft and took two lefts he would come to the ventilation shaft right about the main area of the solitary confinement area. So he proceeded to move forward, and after about two minutes he came to the shaft above the area he need to be. He scanned his surroundings and there were only two guards, which was a good thing. Jack kicked in the shaft, dropped down landed, pulled the silence hand gun out of his pocket and fired two rounds into one of the guards chest. He then spun around and aimed it at the others guards head,

"What cell is Hans in?"

Hans heard Jack from outside, he scattered up and brought his head to the little hole opening he had in the door,

"Jack, I'm in here."

Jack looked to see the door labeled SC12, he then looked back at the guard,

"Open the door."

"I can't I have to radio it in."

Jack pushed the barrel of the silenced gun to the guards forehead,

"Then do it."

The guard reached down to his radio and brought it to his mouth,

"This is Lennahan down in SC. I need an open up on SC12."

Another voice crackled over the radio,

"What's going on?"

"Hans is acting up, I need to shut his ass up."

"Need help?"

"Nah, I got Joey down here thanks to the lock down. Can you open it up please?"

"Sure thing boss."

Within seconds the door to SC12 slide open, Hans rushed out, grabbed the guard by his neck and applied pressure. A few seconds later the guard was on the floor passed out. Hans looked at Jack and smiled, he walked over to him and embraced him in a friendly hug.

"Jack Bauer, you're a bad ass mother fucker. When I heard the announcement you broke I knew you were coming."

Hans looked at Jack's gun,

"Where'd you get that?"

Jack smiled,

"Made a pit stop."

Jack grabbed the other silenced gun and handed it to Hans,

"Come on, we need to get out of here. Miles and Roger are waiting up near the roof."

Once again Hans smiled and patted Jack's shoulder,

"Jack you stepped it up, I think my brother and I just may have some work for you when you get out of here."

Jack smiled and looked at a table in the corner of the room,

"Well, let's just get out of here first. Help me move that table under the shaft so we can get back in."

Jack and Hans both jogged over to a steel table that was located in the corner of the room and grabbed onto it, They carried it under the shaft and Jack looked at Hans,

"You first."

Hans hopped up on the table and jumped up towards the shaft. He grabbed onto both sides and pulled him self up, Jack hopped on the table following him but before he could three guards came rushing into the room. Jack knelt down on the table, fired three shots piercing them all in the chest. One of them raised his gun again and Jack fired by him, but missed on purpose. The guard dropped his arm and played dead like he was instructed. Jack then pulled himself up and Hans looked at him,

"Jesus Jack, what's that four guards down? Where'd you learn to shoot?"

Jack thought of something to say,

"I was a hired gun before I met you."

Hans smiled,

"Boy am I glad I picked you up."

Hans started crawling forward and Jack followed closely behind. After about three minutes they came up to the ventilation shaft they were to escape from, only to be halted my Rogers voice,

"The fan is going, we can't get out."

Hans looked up at it,

"Shit, that must be a part of their lock down security."

Jack looked at the spinning blade for a minute then looked at Hans,

"Give me your gun and get out of the way."

Hans handed Jack his gun, Jack moved up towards the shaft and took a deep breath, for is this didn't work both his hands would be missing. Jack held out both guns, and lunged his hands forward into the blade. The blade immediately stopped, the force jerked Jack's body a little bit but he managed to stay strong. He looked at Hans and the other two men and grunted as he talked,

"Go through , I can't hold this for long."

"How will you get out?"

Jack was still grunting,

"I'll find a way, just go!"

Hans went up and crawled through the shaft, followed by Miles and then Roger. Jack grips on the guns started to slip as the rain poured down on his hands. Before Jack could pull his hands away Hans came crashing through the fan, knocking the fan out of it's position and crashing down on Jack. Jack shook his head after the commotion was over, Hans was standing over Jack holding his hand out,

"I wasn't going to just leave you here to find a way out on your own."

Jack grabbed his hand and Hans pulled him up,

"Thanks."

Jack grabbed both guns and the two men climbed through the shaft. The rain was now really starting to come down hard, and the men were all instantly soaked. Jack looked off in the horizon and could see that the rain would soon stop, but for now they had to deal. Hans looked at his watch,

"We got two minutes before the chopper is here."

And on that exact note a door slammed open and the riot control team came spewing out the doors frames. Jack looked around,

"Get behind the ventilation shafts now."

All the men dove behind the shafts and Jack followed. Bullets began to tear past them, leaving water trails in the their wake. Jack popped up and started firing both guns in the direction of the riot team. Three men fell to the ground before Jack had to duck back down. In the distance the sound of a chopper started and for the first time in eight months Jack had felt excited, even happy. Jack looked at Hans,

"The chopper is coming, get ready. I will hold them off until you're all on."

Hans looked at Jack,

"I'm normally not a guy to say it, but thank you Jack. Without you this wouldn't be possible."

Jack nodded,

"Get ready."

Jack popped back up and fired two more rounds taking down another two guards. There were about three left. The chopper leveled its self next to the roof, the riot team started firing at it, obviously missing it's weak points. Jack looked at Hans,

"Go, now!"

Hans sprung up and sprinted towards the helicopter. While he was running Jack looked at Miles and Roger,

"I can't let you two go."

Jack raised his gun to Rogers head, sent a bullet flying through his skull. He raised the other gun to Miles and did the same thing. Jack then stood up, hopped over the ventilation shaft and charged towards the riot guards. He emptied his gun into their chests, where hopefully the vests would stop the bullets. Jack dropped the guns and turned around running towards the helicopter. He quickly leapt off the building, grabbed the landing bars on the chopper and the helicopter started to pull away from the prison. Jack felt a hand grabbed his wrist, and looked up to see Hans and a face he couldn't make out because of the rain. The two men grabbed his wrist and pulled him up into the helicopter. Jack sat down on one of the chairs breathing heavily. Jack finally noticed who the other man was, it was Hans' brother Shane. Hans looked at Jack,

"They got Miles and Roger didn't they?"

Jack nodded,

"I tried getting them, but they were cut down while running towards the chopper."

"Shit."

Shane looked Jack up and down, Jack met his gaze back. Jack almost expected Shane to put a bullet in his head, but instead he got a warm smile.

"Thank you."

Jack smiled back,

"Thank you, can't believe were finally out."

5:59:56

5:59:57

5:59:58

6:00:00


	4. 6:00 PM 7:00 PM

****

The Following Takes Place Between 6:00 PM and 7:00 PM

The rain slowly started to fade away, coming to a slow pitter patter, it was almost calming. In the distance you could see the sun trying to burst in through the thick, heavy gray clouds. It's to bad it would be night soon, it looked like it would end up being nice out after all. Jack kept staring out side of the chopper windows, ever since he first entered that prison he had looked into things like that. He never before believed in signs, or luck or anything of the sort. He thought it was all skill, and as long as you knew what you were doing you'd make it through. But being in there made him realize a lot of it is luck. He never knew if Han's would actually allow him into his group, he could of wasted a year of his life for nothing. But luckily, Han's had accepted him, believed that Jack wanted to help. And it got Jack right where he wanted. Jack's eyes left the window, and he met Shane's gaze. Shane reminded Jack of him self, about the same weight and height. Shane might have been an inch or two taller, brown eyes, and black hair. However, they both had similar facial features. Stress marks, a weary look, and painful eyes. Jack could tell Shane had been through a lot, but he didn't know what exactly. The silence finally broke thanks to Shane.

"So, Jack. Before you got locked up, what exactly was it that you did?"

Jack dug deep into his brain to bring up the back story that the government had set up for him,

"It's a long story."

Shane smiled,

"We got about ten minutes before we get back to our warehouse, shoot."

Jack sighed,

"I graduated high school in L.A. I took carpentry classes. My father owned a business, and when I graduated he wanted me to join him, but we had our fare share of disagreements. So instead of doing what he wanted, I ran off and enlisted into the services. I spent about five years in the services. I then got an un honorable discharge. I was leading a team on a recon mission in Iraq, we came upon a village. One of the members of my team went behind my back and told the rest of the team I gave orders to have the villagers executed. They carried out the execution, and I was blamed for it. Everyone told command I gave the orders, I was betrayed by my country. With that kind of thing on your record it's hard to get a job, me and my wife split. She took my daughter, after that I started using to pass the pain. But soon after using I had no more money to use so my life was a mess. I then become a hired gun, working for anyone that needed it. The last contract I had was someone needed help robbing a series of banks, and that's what I got put in for."

Shane was still looking at Jack, he hadn't once removed his eyes of Jack, it seemed like he was almost captivated by Jack's story. Once Shane realized Jack had finally stopped talking he cleared his throat,

"It seems me and you are very similar my friend."

Jack yawned a little bit,

"And how's that?"

"I was betrayed by my government as well. Our government works a little differently than yours. They felt that officers weren't doing enough to keep confidential information, well confident. So they ran undercover tests, that had some officers captured, and tortured to see if they'd give up vital information. After being tortured for three and half months I had finally cracked. They thought of me as a disgrace, and let me go. That's when I turned on any form of Government."

Jack nodded his head in agreement,

"I feel you on that, you work your ass off. Serve your country and you get jack shit in return."

Jack thought about those words for a minute, and was surprised when he actually believed those words. He had done so much for the country, and what does he get? Nothing. Jack quickly pushed the thoughts out of his head when Shane started to speak again. Shane looked at Hans and laughed,

"You picked a good one to help you out."

Hans laughed and looked at Jack,

"Sure did."

Jack smiled with the two men then looked back at Shane,

"So, besides getting you're brother out. What brought you to the U.S.? It surely wasn't our government."

Hans smiled,

"Well, if all goes well you will find out in a few hours. Lets just say we have a little something up our sleeves for the so called, government. If you prove to be as useful as Hans says you are, then I will gladly let you in on that little secret."

Those were the words Jack wanted to hear so bad, it pretty much confirmed that they were indeed planning something.

"What do you mean if I prove to be useful?"

"I got some work I need done, it's a part of this little plan that I have. If you're interested I'd like you to take care of it for me. You'll get plenty of money out of it."

"What kind of work?'

Shane looked at Hans and smiled,

"Lets wait till we get back and have something to eat, I hate discussing business on an empty stomach. Don't you agree?"

Jack nodded and felt his stomach rumble at the idea of real food.

"Yeah, I am rather hungry. That shit they served in there did absolutely nothing for me."

Han smiled,

"Aint that the truth."

Wayne was talking on the phone with his public relations worker,

"Yes Mary, I agree. I do need to make a statement to the public about the prison break. Set it up for me, can you get me on within a half hour?"

"Yes, of course sir."

"Thank you."

As soon as the phone was back on the receiver Tom Lennox walked into the room with a grim look on his face,

"What is it Tom?"

"The warden from the prison Jack broke out of is on the phone, it's not good sir."

"What's wrong?"

"Just take the call sir."

Wayne picked up the phone and dialed the flashing red button and cleared his throat.

"Hello, Warden. What Can I do for you?"

"With all due respect sir, this plan was shit!."

Wayne kind of figured out what he was calling about, but went along anyway.

"And why do you say that if you don't mind me asking?"

"Four of my men were killed by that damn man you call an agent. And two more in critical condition. No one was suppose to die."

Wayne sighed, closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead in his hands.

"I'm sorry for your loss, but it was…."

Wayne stopped him self, but the warden finished.

"What, necessary? I didn't ask to have that piece of shit criminal and your federal agent in this prison. You could of transferred him to another then had your agent go in damnit!"

"Listen, they won't die in vein I can promise you that."

"I want to know what happens with these possible terrorist, if nothing comes out of this you can guarantee I will make sure an investigation is launched."

Wayne suddenly no longer felt bad, but enraged.

"Is that a threat warden?"

"You bet your ass it is."

"I can tell you this one thing, the President of the United States is not an enemy you want to have."

"Well, I'll take my chances."

The warden slammed down the phone, and Wayne sighed heavily. He was angered by his threat, but knew the warden was right. The thought of blaming Jack almost entered his head, but he couldn't. After everything he had done, how could Jack be to blame. He did the right thing by going to the warden, he had no other choice. The reality of the matter was that he himself was to blame. He sent Jack in there, anything that followed was on his head. Wayne pushed the thoughts out and shook his head, he had to get back to work on his speech.

Kim stared at the T.V. screen in front of her, which was showing the nightly six o' clock news. She yawned and kind of let out a sigh of relief. After having a rough couple of days with Ryan being sick, he finally went down to sleep for the night, and she had time to relax. She was however, getting a little nervous. It was now 6:10 and Chase should have been home by now, or at least called to let her know that work was running late, but that's also the other thing that bothered Kim. She knew Chase was going in after a high class suspect, and one days like this, she learned with her father, she had to be prepared for the worst. She wasn't normally one to worry, but under the circumstances she couldn't help it. Kim picked up the phone and dialed a number, which connected her directly to the police chief.

"Chief Ronson speaking."

"Brian, it's Kim again."

Brian sighed,

"Kim.."

When she heard him sigh she instantly knew what was wrong, she put the phone to her ear and started rubbing her engagement ring.

"What is it, what happened?"

"We don't know, we sent a second team over to the location of where everything was going down. We found the bodies of everyone apart of the operation, except for Chase. It seems he either escaped or has been taken into captivity."

Kim closed her eyes and felt her heart sink, she almost started to cry but held it in.

"If he had escaped, he would of contacted someone by now."

There was silence,

"I know, that's why were assuming the worst. We are launching a full investigation, if he is alive we will find him."

The word hit Kim hard. She had already made up her mind and nothing could stop her,

"I'm coming down to the station, I want to be there for any updates."

"I understand, we have Joe Copeland, Chase's partner here. I will have him meet you."

Kim nodded to herself,

"I'll be there soon."

Kim hung up the phone and dialed another number, the phone rang a few times then an elderly sounding voice picked up.

"Hello."

"Hey Nana it's me, Kim."

On the other line Jack's mother began to speak,

"Hey sweetie how are you doing?"

"Alright, listen I need a favor. There are some problems with Chase. I need to head down to the station, do you think you could watch Ryan?"

"Is everything alright sweetie?"

"I don't know, I'm going down there now to find out."

"Sure thing, I can be there in twenty five minutes."

"Ok, thank you nana."

"No problem, I'll see you soon."

Kim hung up the phone, pushed herself up off the couch and went up stairs. She looked down at Ryan, and stared at his face. He looked so much like Chase, same hair, same cheeks, same eyes. Her eyes wandered off of Ryan, and moved across the room until she came upon another crib. She ran her hand down to her stomach, to feel the four month pregnant belly. She began to rub it up and down and prey to herself.

6:16:04

Jack looked down to the ground below him as the chopper began to get close and closer to the wet ground. The rain had finally completely stopped, but there were still very large puddles all around. The area they were landing in was on the roof of what seemed to be an abandoned warehouse. The roof was gray, with a couple of ventilation shafts sticking up from the ceiling. There was just enough room for the helicopter to land. The moving finally came to a stop, and the sound of the helicopters engines started to fade into the distance. Shane stood up and walked over to he helicopters sliding door and opened it up, he hopped out and looked back in at Jack and Hans.

"Welcome to freedom boys."

Hans took a deep breath, smiled at Jack and hopped out. Jack stood up and hopped out as well. His feet slammed into a puddle, which sent water flying up and making his pant legs wet. Jack stretched and looked around,

"So, what's the plan now?" Jack asked the two men.

"We have a van waiting for us on the other side of this building. Some of my men are in it, their going to take us back to our, "base" so to speak."

Hans and Shane started walking forward and Jack followed closely behind them. They all walked to the edge of the building, which lead to a ladder that went down to the ground. Shane got on the ladder fist, Hans got on second and Jack followed closely. They all got the bottom of the ground and the white van Shane had been talking about pulled out around the corner. On cue, following the van a helicopter flew over head and flashed a light down on them.

"This is NYPD, stop right there!"

They all looked up,

"Shit, how did they find us?"

"Must of followed us!" Jack yelled.

Sirens followed the sound of the chopper and Jack new that police were closing in. Jack looked at Shane and Hans and started screaming over the sound of the helicopter.

"Give me a cell phone! Call me in about five minutes, I'll loose them and you guys can take off on foot and head back to your base!"

Shane tossed Jack a cell phone and Jack put it in his pocket.

"As soon as I take off run into the warehouse and try to find a way out."

Jack ran over to the drivers seat of the van, opened the door and threw the man who was driving out. Jack heard the words,

"Stop we will shoot!"

Jack closed the door and he heard gun shots hit the van, Jack slammed on the gas, completely turned the wheel and peeled out of the alleyway. Han and Shane bolted into the warehouse, distracted by the van the helicopter pilot didn't notice them go into the warehouse. Jack took a sharp turn right onto the main road and pushed the van as fast as it would go. Police car's started passing Jack, but when they got the word from the helicopter to follow the white van they all quickly mad U-turns and started tailing the van. Jack quickly pulled out the cell phone while he was driving and dialed a number. A woman's voice picked up and before she could even speak Jack started shouting,

"This is Jack Bauer, I need to speak to the President now!"

"One moment please."

Jack was placed on hold, he put the phone to his ear and slammed on the breaks as a police car was beside him. The car went flying past him, Jack pulled the wheel all the way to the right and slammed on the gas again. He started flying down a road, swerving in and out of cars when the President finally answered,

"Jack?"

"Mr. President, were out."

Wayne heard sirens on the other end of the phone,

"What's going on Jack?"

"The police must of followed us from the prison, I had to take a van to distract them from Hans and Shane. I just wanted to let you know I was out, and I will contact you when I can."

"Thanks for the update, Jack."

Jack hung up the phone and saw that at the other end of the street there was a dock leading out to the ocean. Jack pulled the battery out of the back of the cell phone, and put both the phone and battery in the glove box. He then put his seat belt on and kept steering the car straight forward. He finally got on to the dock, and sent the van flying into the water. The van, along with Jack Bauer hit the water, and started to sink.

President Palmer walked slowly down the long, white hallway and he could hear the popping of bulbs from cameras, and many people talking. Wayne looked at Tom and Tom said,

"How'd the speech come out?"

"Short and sweet, just how I want it."

"It's kind of odd that the President is making a statement on a prison escape only a half hour after the fact."

"I am going to let the public know that one of the men who escaped has potential ties to a terrorist, and it is imperative that he is captured."

Tom nodded his head,

"Good idea sir."

Wayne stopped in front of the door and he heard someone on the other side of the door announce.

"Ladies and gentlemen, The President of The United States."

The doors opened and Wayne walked out into the small press conference area and started waving to all the journalist and photographers out in the room. Wayne walked up to the podium, placed his hands firmly on either side and began to speak into the microphone.

"Please, be seated."

Everyone in the room sat down and Wayne looked directly into the camera.

"Citizens of The United States. It has been brought to my attention that two inmates in a New York City prison have in fact broken out, and are now on the run from the law. Now under any normal circumstances I would let the proper procedures be taken to find these suspects, but the fact is that this is no normal procedure. The first man that broke out, Jack Bauer, is of no real immediate threat, that we know of. But the second man that broke out, Hans Gushov is possibly a high value threat to his country. His brother, Shane Gushov is believed to be the leader of a terrorist cell Shadow Haven. We ask if anyone has any information on these men, or has seen them recently to please contact your local authorities. I thank you for you're compliance. Have a good day."

Wayne quickly turned around, ignoring any questions anyone had and walked back towards the hall, Tom Lennox followed beside him.

"Short, sweet, and to the point like you said."

Wayne swallowed hard,

"Yeah, I just hope it doesn't get Jack killed."

6:32:03

Jack quickly jerked his head up and grunted in pain. He moved his hand to his forehead and his fingertips instantly became warm and wet. Jack wiped his forehead and felt water rushing over his leg, and rising up. Jack looked down to see that the water was to about his knee caps. Jack quickly unbuckled his seat belt and reached over to the glove box. He opened it up and pulled out the cell phone and battery, he popped the battery back in and noticed a small zip lock bag inside the glove box. He pulled the bag out and it contained a fairly good amount of pot. Jack quickly opened the bag, emptied all the pot onto the floor and put the phone inside the bag, and put it in his pocket. He looked out the front windshield of the car and saw some fish swimming around him, the van had already sunken pretty far. Jack turned to his left and tried opening the door but the water pressure was too much. Jack leaned back and started kicking the window as hard as he could. After a few kicks the window gave in and water spewed into the van. The pressure sent Jack back slamming into the passenger side door. Jack quickly took a deep breath and pushed him self towards the window. He was now all the way under water and swam out of the window. He kept on swimming as far as he could before he ran out of breath and slowly came up for air. He barley had his head above water as he looked around, he was still kind of close to shore, but far enough to the right so the cops couldn't see him. He saw another small dock, and heard some choppers coming in over head. He swam over to the dock and sat under it while the helicopters came over head. Once the helicopters passed he quickly got on shore, and tried running, being soaked made it a little harder. He ran to a building across the street, with an alley beside it. He went down to the end of the alley and sat down. He pulled out the cell phone from his pocket, unwrapped it from the bag and turned it on.

Kim quickly walked through her living room, towards the kitchen. Only to be stopped by what was playing on the television. She walked backwards until she was back inline with the television. She watched the screen as the President's speech that he had just delivered was being replayed.

"The first man that broke out, Jack Bauer, is of no real immediate threat, that we know of. But the second man that broke out, Hans Gushov is possibly a high value threat to his country. His brother, Shane Gushov is believed to be the leader of a terrorist cell Shadow Haven. We ask if anyone has any information on these men, or has seen them recently to please contact your local authorities. I thank you for you're compliance. Have a good day."

Besides the fact that her husband was missing, Kim felt suddenly relieved to hear those words. Her father had actually been honest with her about his work for once in her life, and told her what he had to do. And after eight months knowing that he was finally out made her feel happy. It was like some of the weight was lifted off her shoulders, for the past eight months she did nothing but worry for her father. He had to of gone through hell in there, especially after coming out of a Chinese prison only twelve months before that. As Kim started to walk back towards the kitchen her house phone rang, hoping it was something about Chase she quickly picked up the phone.

"Hello?"

There was silence for a minute, then the voice at the other end finally spoke.

"Kim?"

The sound of the voice she hadn't heard in eight months made her smile, and feel even happier than she had felt.

"Hey dad, I was just watching the Presidents speech about you breaking out. I'm so happy you're finally out."

Jack also smiled after hearing Kim's voice,

"Oh yeah, what'd he say?"

"Just that you were of no real immediate threat, but the other guy that you had to go in there to break out could possibly be connected to a terrorist group. What I don't get about this whole thing, is if they send you in there to break him out. Why is the President going to come out, make a speech, and have your face plastered all over the news?"

"We need to make this look as legit as possible, for both the public and my sake. I mean if we break out, and there is nothing on the news about us, they people I'm trying to get in with are going to be suspicious about it. Don't you think?"

Kim sighed,

"Yeah that's true, I just want this to be as easy as possible for you so you can come home."

"I appreciate that sweetheart, how have you been?"

"Up until today, good. Chase went on some bust, and at the scene where the bust was suppose to take place, they found Chase's whole team dead. The only person who they didn't find was Chase, and now he is missing."

Jack wanted nothing more than to comfort his daughter, and be there for her support. But he knew while he was on a job, he had to push any emotional feelings aside, until the mission was complete.

"Kim, I'm so sorry."

"Yeah, I'm heading down to the station now. Grandma is coming over to watch Ryan."

"How is grandma? And Ryan, and the new one on the way?"

Jack smiled at the thought of meeting his second grandchild.

"Ryan and grandma are both good, she has been around a lot for us. And the other one is coming a lot great, it's as healthy as can be and we found out the sex of the baby."

"Oh yeah? What is it?"

"A girl, we are going to name her Terri."

Jack smiled,

"That's great Kim. Listen, I don't want to be rude but I just wanted you to be the first person I talked to after I get out. When I get the chance I will contact you and see what's going on with Chase."

"Ok, I need to go anyway. Grandma is here."

"Let her know we talked, ok?"

"Sure thing."

"Ok sweetheart I love you."

"I love you too dad."

Kim hung up the phone and walked towards the sink.

Jack sat in the back alley waiting for the phone call. After the rain had stopped it had become surprisingly warm and Jack was starting to get hot. The wet t-shirt on his back didn't help at all either. He peeled the shirt off his wet skin and threw it to the side of him. The cell phone started to ring and Jack picked it up.

"Yeah?"

There was a loud laugh on the other end of the line,

"Jack fucking Bauer, you avoided the police didn't you."

"Yeah, the van is under water right now though."

There was more laughter,

"That's all right, thanks to you we managed to escape, where are you?"

"I'm down at Peters Point Pier, across the street behind the FedEx Kinko's."

"Ok, that's like three minutes out and two minutes away from our warehouse. We had one of our men pick us up, were on our way."

"Ok."

Jack hung up the cell phone, rested his head against the wall he was sitting against and closed his eyes.

Manny sat in his comfortable seat in the airplane. Sipping on a bottle of water, and watching the news about his "business" partner. When his cell phone rang, he quickly flipped it open.

"Yeah?"

On the other end the voice of Shane Gushov began to speak,

"My brothers out, were going to pick up Jack Bauer, the man who helped him escape then to the warehouse. Where are you?"

"On the plane, we should be there in three and a half hours, four at the most."

"Ok."

Manny shifted positions in his seat,

"Listen, are you sure this Jack Bauer can be trusted?"

"Why wouldn't he be able to be trusted? He was already in prison, and is pretty much the reason my brother is out."

"I don't know, you're probably right. I just want today to go as smooth as possible."

"I understand your concern, and appreciate it. But there is no way we can fail now. Everything is too perfect."

"The mall this is all going down, it closes at ten P.M. right?"

"Yes, the target will be there at eight. I plan on being in by nine."

"Ok, I'll call you when we touch down."

"Ok."

Manny hung up his phone and looked over to his other partner, Christopher.

"Their picking up Jack Bauer, the man that helped break out Hans. Then heading over to the warehouse.

The dark figure in the corner named Christopher looked up,

"Good."

6:57:43

Jack heard a vehicle pulling into the alley, he quickly sprung up and hid behind the dumpster across from him. A dark blue ford escort pulled up and Jack noticed Shane's face in the passengers seat window. Jack came out from behind the dumpster, and the car stopped. Hans came out of the car, embraced Jack in a quick hug and pulled away.

"Jack Bauer my savior. I owe you a lot."

Jack smiled,

"A job would be nice."

Shane stepped out of the car and smiled,

"We get you're job interview right here in the trunk."

Jack's heart dropped, he instantly knew what Shane was going to ask of him. Jack walked over to the trunk, which was now popped open only to see a New York Police officer tied and gagged in the trunk, struggling to get free.

"He went after us, and instead of killing him. I decided he'd be a good way to prove your worth."

Jack wanted to kill Shane and his brother right there, he collected his cool and looked up at Shane.

"I already have about eight or nine authority figures on my belt today. Can't someone else do it?"

Hans thrusted a silenced USP 40 in his hand. Jack looked down at the gun and thought, "at least he knows how to pick a good gun." Jack pulled the clip out of the gun to check it, one bullet and it wasn't a blank. He knew once he fired the gun the officer would be dead. And with one bullet, and three men around him, there wasn't much Jack could do. Jack took a deep breath, cocked the gun back and aimed it towards the officers head.

"I have some heart, his family is going to need to identify him. Can't we atleast pull his fist off and shoot him in the heart? I'm a family man, and I can say this is something no one should have to see."

Shane nodded his head,

"I respect that, I'm a family man myself. Hans pull his shirt and vest off."

Hans grabbed the officer and threw him to the ground, he ripped off his shirt and vest so the officer sat on his knees, he was starting to breath heavy and shake, as if he was trying to plead but the gag in his mouth was stopping him. Jack placed the gun directly to the mans chest, where is his heart would be and pulled the trigger. The bullet sent burst of blood and gore against the car and a little bit on Jack's bare chest. Hans smiled,

"I told he was good."

Jack kept a straight face, even though his eyes started to burn. Jack handed the gun to Shane and Shane smiled,

"Test one out of two complete. What do you say we go get some food in your stomachs, and get you guys some fresh clothes? Then we'll talk business."

Jack forced a smile,

"That's what I've been waiting to hear. Jack got in the back of the car, Hans followed. Shane got back in the front seat and the car took off down the alley.

6:59:57

6:59:58

6:59:59

7:00:00


	5. 7:00 PM 8:00 PM

Authors Note : To the people who have reviewed the story so far, thank you. I just want to say that I love writing this fan fic, but I feel that it's not worth it if people aren't reading it. I don't know if people are reading it or not without reviews. So if I don't start getting some more this could possibly be my last chapter. Also, what I found is that it's kind of hard doing a full 24 hour story. So what I'm planning on doing is kind of like what The Shield does. Have it be 12 chapters / hours. Then take a 2 - 3 month break before finishing the story up. Thank you.

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The Following Takes Place Between 7:00 PM and 8:00 PM

The dark blue escort pulled up in front of an old, burnt down looking industrial warehouse. Jack looked out the window at the warehouse, rather unimpressed.

"This is it?"

Hans looked at Jack,

"We had to spend a lot of money to make other things right, the condition of the operation base was the least of our worries."

Jack sighed, and kind of laughed in his head, they had no idea how to run an operation.

"It should be your biggest worry."

Shane turned around and looked at Jack Bauer, with a stern look on his face.

"And why is that Mr. Bauer?"

Jack put on his cocky tone and began to talk,

"Well for one thing, what are you going to do if some feds caught wind of your operation? You wouldn't be able to prepare your self at all. There are to many entrance ways due to rotting roofs and other discrepancies. Two, this looks like a local hang out spot for local teenage shit heads, I wouldn't be surprised if some kids stumbled on to this place and blew up your whole operation."

Jack got out of the car and slammed the door, Jack knew in the back of his head he shouldn't of got mouthy like that, but he needed to let out some steam. Shane turned back to Hans and smiled,

"Did I tell you I liked this guy?"

Hans laughed,

"You and me both."

Jack started to walk towards the warehouse as Hans and Shane got out of the car, Shane shouted at Jack.

"Why are you getting upset over this?"

Jack looked back at Shane,

"I just spent eight months of my life, away from my daughter and grandchild, soon to be grandchildren and now I need to do some work to get money. I don't want to run the risk of getting caught, after taking all the effort to break out. I just want everything to go as good as it possibly can."

Jack pushed past the guard standing in front of the door and looked around the warehouse, it was practically empty. A few computers scattered around, a couple of TV's and that was about it. Jack let out a heavy sigh. "What the fuck am I getting my self into?" Jack thought to him self. Shane walked over to Jack and grabbed his shoulder,

"Why don't you follow me my friend?"

Shane walked in front of Jack and Hans behind him, Jack began to follow. They walked through two long halls then came to a heavy steel door. Next to it was a number pad, Jack knew what to expect now and assumed he'd be kicking him self in the ass for catching an attitude about the warehouse. A beeping noise came from the pad, confirming the password was correct. Jack memorized the password incase he needed it. 112188. The door unlocked and moved forward on it's hinges. Shane pulled the door all the way open and entered the door way. There was a lot of lights lining the stairway down into the real part of the warehouse. When Jack finally reached the operation room he was amazed, the room was well lit by the same white lights that had lined the stairway. To the left and right of the room there were computers all lined up across the wall, each computer had someone sitting at it typing away. Jack looked at the screen and saw what looked like to be security footage. While trying to take everything in, Jack felt a smack on the back of his head and turned to see Hans' smiling face.

"You should learn to bite your tongue."

Jack smiled,

"Yeah."

Shane put his hand on Jacks shoulder and turned Jack to the right.

"I don't enjoy looking at you with no shirt on and in soaking wet prison pants, why don't you go to the room over there. It's a walk in closet, with tons of clothes. Our dinner will be ready in about five minutes, so change up."

Shane pointed to the door and Jack started walking away, Hans noticed all of Jacks' scars on his back and kind of squinted his eyes, making a face as if he was being hurt.

"Damn Jack, what happened to your back?"

Jack froze, trying to think of a story, he decided he would tell the truth. Well, sort of. He turned around,

"While I was working for the Government, I lead a team into China. I was captured and held prisoner there for a year, until my Government finally sent someone in to rescue me. These scars were a result of my torture."

Hans just stared at Jacks' cold eyes and knew he was telling the truth.

"Damn, well don't worry. What we have in plan, is sure to get back at your government."

Jack turned back around and walked into the closet, closing the door behind him.

His head was splitting in pain and he tried as hard as he could to push him self up, but to no avail. Chase opened his eyes and everything was hazy, he could barley see five feet in front of him. He had a flash back of Manny injecting something into his neck, then blacking out. Chase blinked a few more times and the haziness went away, he could finally see the whole room clearly. He tried moving but remembered that he was tied up. He shifted himself up so he was sitting upright and started thinking of a way to get out of his restraints. He tried shifting around a little bit, and realized there was no way out. Chase heard a click at the door and it opened up. Chase winced as some light flashed into the room and the door closed. There was another click, a light went on in the room and Chases' head began to throb more. He looked up to see an older man, in his late fifties early sixties. He had blondish hair, and blue eyes. The man began to speak,

"My names Chris, Manny is a friend of mine."

Chris walked around the room a little bit,

"Looks like what ever he gave you didn't last too long."

Chase didn't feel like listening to his shit, and cut right to the chase.

"What do you guys have planned?"

Chris smiled and laughed a little bit,

"Straight to the point, no bull shit. I like that, kind of reminds me of my self."

Chase looked at him and started to yell,

"What do you want with me?!"

Chris kicked Chase in the ribs, Chase let out a grunt and closed his eyes. Chris knelt down beside him,

"I read your file, how long did you work with Jack Bauer?"

Chase opened his eyes and looked up shocked,

"What does this have to do with Jack?"

Chris smiled,

"How long did you work with him?"

Chase thought,

"I dunno, we worked together for a few years. Then I ended up with his daughter, so we've known each other for almost seven, eight years."

Chris began to pace the room,

"How is Kim doing?"

Chase looked up,

"The fuck do you know about Kim?"

"Relax, relax, I'd never hurt her. Jack, the family, and I have a long history. A very long history. In fact, your connection with Jack Bauer is the only reason I had Manny let you live."

Chris started walking towards the door, before he turned the knob he turned back towards Chase.

"Don't worry, this will all be over in a few hours. I promise."

Chris opened the door, walked out and closed it behind him. Chase leaned his head back and let out a heavy sigh.

Jack looked at him self in the mirror, and agreed with the look. He put on a pair of black jeans, a navy blue t-shirt and another navy blue over jacket, kind of like the green one that Terri gave him that he always used to wear. Jack stepped out of the room and looked around. He didn't see Hans or Shane, so he decided to snoop around a little bit. Jack walked over to one of the computer stations and sat down. He began typing a few commands to see if he could bring up any files. One file caught his eye, it had his name on it. He clicked the file and it brought up reports on Jack's life, sort of. It was all the reports that the government had filed for him, everything from birth, up until his recent time spent in jail. Jack was pleased, and relieved that nothing of his old life had come up. Jack then clicked on the FireFox icon on the desktop and typed in The page loaded lighting fast and the first thing to pop up on the page was his mug shot, along with Hans', the title bearing the words "Potential terrorist, and a local convict escape a New York City Prison." Jack shook his head, the thought of people thinking of him as a criminal after everything he had done for his country didn't sit right with him. Jack was startled at the sound of Shane's voice,

"Jack, come over here! Dinners ready."

Jack pushed him self away from the computer desk, and stood up. He walked over to Shane and entered another small room, the room was a lot darker than the rest of the warehouse, but was still lit well enough to see. There was tons of food on the table, Jack's stomach started twisting and turning at the sight of real food, but of course, they were interrupted by the voice of one of the technicians,

"Shane! The target is in position, he's two hours early!"

"Son of a bitch!"

Shane ran over to the technician, Jack followed. The technician was looking at the security feed of some warehouse, there were boxes of TV's and computers, Jack figured it was the warehouse of some electronics store.

"How long is he going to be there?" Shane asked.

"According to our man on the inside, he will be there for about two to three hours."

Shane turned to Jack,

"Your first assignment starts early."

Jack pushed the thought of food, and his empty stomach away and looked at Shane,

"What am I doing?"

Shane grabbed Jack by the shoulder and brought him across the hall, into an armory room.

"Listen, I can't tell you the details of the whole mission yet, but once you do your part, I promise you'll be let in on what's going on."

Jack nodded,

"That's fine, what's my part?"

"I'm sending you and a team of six other men to a place called CTU, you heard of it?"

Jack's heart dropped, and he suddenly became nervous. He worked at CTU NY for a month many years ago, he feared someone there may still remember him. But that was something he couldn't worry about now.

"I heard a little bit about them, back when I was in the service. Why are we going to CTU?"

Shane walked towards a gun cabinet, that had an electronic lock on it.

"There the only agency around here who has the man power and resources to catch on to our little plan, so we need them taken out"

"You want us to go in there and kill them all?" Jack asked.

"No, no. That's to risky and unnecessary, we got a hold of a mini EMP bomb, we need you and the team to drop it in the middle of CTU. Once it goes off it will render them completely useless for hours if not days. Keeping them out of our hair. Now, if you need to then by all means kill people, but keep it down. This needs to go as quick as possible, understood?"

Jack grew more nervous, but forced a nod.

"Yeah."

"Ok good, gear up. I'm getting the team ready, I will have a chopper ready on the roof in three minutes, meet them up there. And Jack.."

Jack looked at Shane,

"What?"

"Don't fuck this up."

Shane turned away and walked out of the room. Jack placed his hands on his face and started rubbing his it, he realized that he needed to shave, feeling some short hairs starting to sprout from his face, he took a deep breath and opened the gun cabinet. He had an array of weapons to choose from, but the first thing that caught his eyes was a USP 40 handgun. He grabbed the hand gun, cocked it back and checked it out. He then ejected the clip and checked it, it was full. 12 bullets. He pulled out three extra clips for it and laid them out on a table. He then walked over to another locker, opened it up and inside was a rack holding black and navy blue flack jackets. Jack grabbed a black one, slipped it on over his shirt and put the three extra clips into one of his pockets. Jack grabbed the holster for the USP, clipped it to his belt, slide the gun inside and closed the cabinet doors. Jack looked at the room around him, and he was pretty impressed. They obviously had good funding, and Jack actually feared they may be able to pull of their plan, but he was going to make damn sure that didn't happened. Jack braced him self, grabbed the handle of the door and walked out.

Chase was still struggling with the rope that was binding him down, he tried pulling as hard as he could but nothing was budging. He heard someone at the door and stopped fidgeting , Manny walked into the room and looked at Chase and smiled,

"That shit didn't last long, maybe I'll have to give you another dose?"

Chase looked up,

"I'm bound pretty well, trust me, I've been trying to get out. What the hell's the use of putting me to sleep?"

Manny laughed then circled around Chase,

"I don't know why Chris had me come in here, he said he thought you'd be able to get out and check the rope, seems pretty sturdy to me."

Manny stood back in front of Chase and looked down at him,

"You son of a bitch, you caused us a lot of shit during the preparation for this day."

Manny pulled out a handgun, cocked it back and put it towards Chases' temple,

"Maybe I should kill you right here, Chris is the one who wanted to keep you. But we don't need you."

Chase looked up as he saw someone approach behind Manny. Manny felt something touch the back of his head then a gunshot rang out. Brain and gore splattered all over the wall and on Chase, Manny fell onto Chases' lap Chase stared wide eyed at the now lifeless body, he then looked up to see the man Chris standing behind him holding a silenced gun.

"What the hell?"

Chris looked down at Chase,

"Shut up, I'll explain in a second."

Chris walked over behind Chase, knelt down putting all his weight on his feet. He then pulled out a knife, and started cutting the ropes that were binding him loose. Chases hands were free, Chris walked in front of Chase, knelt down in front of him and started to cut the ropes binding his feet. As soon as one foot was loose, Chase sent his foot flying up, smashing into Chris' face. Chris stumbled backwards. Chase jumped up, grabbed the handgun Manny was holding and pointed it at Chris. At the same time Chris pointed his gun at Chase. There they were, both standing there, guns pointed at each others head, each one wondering who was going to act first. Without moving, or blinking Chase began to speak.

"What's going on?"

Chris brought his other hand up to wipe the blood that was running from his lip,

"Get the god damned gun out of my face and I'll explain."

"You lower your gun first."

Chris was still staring at him, but decided it would be best to just make the first move. He lowered his gun to his side and as soon as he did Chase sent his fist flying into the side of his head. Chris stumbled back, Chase dropped his gun and tackled the man to the ground. Chase put his knees on his chest, and started punching him in the head, trying to knock him out. With the third punch Chris grabbed his wrist, twisted it and punched him with the other hand in the ribs. Chase crippled over, Chris sent his leg flying into Chases' stomach and Chase laid on the ground grasping for air. Chris got up, grabbed his gun and pointed at Chase,

"You jackass, you have no idea who you're dealing with."

Chase leaned back and rested his weight on one hand.

"What do you want with me? First your telling me it's all going to be over in a couple hours, now you help me out?"

Chris let out a slight laugh wiping the blood from his face,

"If you would listen for a god damn minute, instead of shooting and asking questions last I would tell you."

Chases nodded,

"Fine, I'll listen."

"Stand up."

Chase stood up and Chris tossed him Manny's gun. Chase caught it and looked at him with a confused look on his face.

"Hopefully that will prove that me and you are on the same side."

Chase cocked the gun back, tucked it into his pants, and looked back at Chris, not sure if he should trust him or not.

"What's going on?"

"I can't get into the full extent of it, until we land in New York. I can tell you this, Manny was an old friend of mine. He told me of this plan he and some other guys had, and asked me if I wanted to get in on it. Now, this attack, if it goes through, could shatter the world as we know it. The whole world would have to start over again, and I can't let that happen, I'm here to stop this from the inside."

Chase walked towards one of the windows of the plane, looking out over the white, fluffy clouds.

"Who do you work for then?"

"My self, I used to work for the Government. Not anymore."

Chase turned around, he tried reading the older mans eyes to see if he could get anything out of him. But all he could see was a cold, dead stare.

"So, how do you plan on getting in with these guys if you killed one of their own."

Chris smiled,

"That's where you come in. When I found out you were connected to Jack Bauer, I figured we could keep you around. Then I made a plan, Manny wasn't necessary for this plan to go through, and he sure as damn well wasn't necessary for my plan. So, if we set it up to make it look like you killed him, and when we land if I come out with you in possession, that will make me look good and will allow me to get in with them easier."

Chase nodded in agreement and began to think,

"Ok, that makes sense. But where does Jack come into all of this?"

"You knew about Jack being in prison, right?"

"Yeah, but he told me and Kim he was there for an assign…."

Chase cut him self off,

"So, you're saying the people you are going in after, are also the people Jack just spent eight months in prison trying to get in with."

Chris smiled,

"You're a bright kid."

Chase nodded again and sat down in one of the chairs,

"I don't know why, but I believe you. I will go along with your plan for now."

"Good, we'll set this up to make it look like you killed him."

"Do you got a phone, I want to call Kim and let her know I'm alright."

Chris reached into his pocket and handed Chase a phone,

"Tell her you managed to take over the plane and the pilot is flying you somewhere in New York. But you don't know where."

Chase nodded, took the phone from Chris and started dialing.

Kim slowly paced back and forth in the break room of the L.A.P.D. Millions of thoughts were running through her exhausted mind, where is Chase? Is he alright? What's going on with her father? Kim felt the pressure starting to build up inside of her, but because she was in a public area, she would not show that she was weak. Kim's cell phone started to ring and it snapped her out of her slow pace. She quickly flipped the phone open and answered in a low tone,

"Hello?"

"Kim, it's me."

Kim's jaw dropped, and sudden joy started to fill her body.

"Chase! What happened?"

Chases' partner heard Kim, pushed him self off the couch and stood close to Kim.

"It was a setup, we were ambushed. I was kidnapped but I managed to take out the people on the plane."

"Oh my god, are you ok?"

"Yeah, I'm fine sweetheart."

Kim started to smile and let out a deep breath,

"So, where are you?"

"I'm not sure, the pilot said he has his orders to land in New York City."

"So once you land will you be coming back?"

Chase kind of hesitated,

"Not exactly."

"Why, Chase? What's wrong?"

"While I was kidnapped I overheard them talking about a potential terrorist attack, and your fathers name was mentioned. I'm going to find out what's going on."

Kim sighed, it seemed like she could never get away from these kind of things.

"I talked to my dad earlier today, he's fine."

"That's good to know, but I can't do nothing if I know something about a potential terrorist attack."

"Why don't you let CTU NY deal with it?"

"Kim, listen you're breaking up, I gotta go. I'll call you when I land."

"Chase, wait!"

"I can't hear you baby, I'll call you."

Kim heard the line cut off and she sighed to herself.

The spinning blades and the roaring engine of the helicopter made it hard to hear anything. Jack looked around at the group of men he was going to be invading CTU with. He couldn't help but feel nervous. This little stunt could ruin the whole mission, Jack knew a lot of people in the Government, especially in CTU. If anyone recognized him, then it could mean the end for him. Jack looked around at the seven other men once more and began to yell,

"What's the plan?!"

The leader of the group Anatoli, looked towards Jack, he spoke with a thick Russian accent.

"We go in through the front doors, that easy."

Jack looked at him like he had three heads,

"So, were rushing a Government facility, with eight men. We won't even make it through the front gate!"

Anatoli laughed, and looked down at the box he was sitting on top of,

"These RPG's tend to disagree with you."

Jack sighed, he could feel the headache he had gained earlier growing stronger. Anatoli began to speak again,

"Shane wants you leading the team in, I'm just here to make everything runs smoothly."

Jack nodded,

"So, what do we need to do?"

"You're going to lead a team of five men, six including your self, into the main area of CTU. You need to make sure everyone inside is sat inside the main work station, or bull pen as the call it, and watch over them. The easiest way to do this is find their director. After you get them round up, your team will call in. Me and Dimitri will then come in with the EMP and set it off."

Jack knew this was for real, people were going to die. And there was nothing he could do about it. The thought of him killing innocent people, doing the same job as him sickened him. The helicopter pilot leaned his head back,

"Were going to be at the drop zone in a minute, get ready."

Anatoli looked at the men around him,

"Masks on."

Jack reached down between his legs and pulled out a black ski mask, he slid it over his face. Jack pulled out his USP 40, checked everything on it and turned the safety off. Anatoli laughed,

"You fucking Americans. Think you can go in guns blazing with a little hand gun like that. If we have to drag your dead body out of there, it's your own damn fault."

Jack smirked,

"We'll see."

The helicopter jerked a little bit, sending everyone in it off balance. Jack looked out of the window and noticed the helicopter was getting closer to the ground. Across the street from where they were landing was CTU. Jack swallowed hard and the helicopter was hovering over the ground, about ten feet.

"Everyone out!"

The men all lined up, grabbing there weapons. Anatoli grabbed the RPG and stood in front of the line. The door swung open, and the men started pouring out. Jack was the last person out, he hopped down and hit the ground, letting his knees absorb the impact. The group of men ran across the street until they were about fifty feet away. Anatoli got down on one knee, rested the RPG on his shoulder and looked at his men.

"On the count of three, go."

Jack looked at the CTU door,

"1"

He rested the USP by his side, and tightened his grip on it.

"2."

He swallowed hard, and closed his eyes.

"3!"

On that count a loud screech echoed across the street and the front doors to the CTU building exploded open. Jack snapped his eyes open, and started sprinting towards the building. The only sound Jack could hear was the thud of the men's boots hitting the warm, wet pavement. The doors were on fire, and smoke poured out of the building. Jack extended his arms out in front of him, and entered the building. Down the long hall was the door to get into the bull pen area of CTU. On the ground to the right of them laid three security guards. Two were dead, one, while his skin was almost completely burnt, and a gaping wound on his leg was still breathing. Jack knelt down beside him and hovered over him.

"What's the pass code to the door?"

The guard looked up at Jack with lifeless eyes, he tried talking but blood just came out of his mouth. Jack slapped his cheek and looked up to see if there was anyone else coming. Gun fire broke out, and the men around him were engaged in combat with the security team.

"What is the pass code!"

"Go… go… fuck your self."

Jack felt bad for the guard, but his patience was wearing thin. Jack shoved the nozzle of his pistol into the open wound on the guards leg and he let out a blood curdling scream.

"You're going to die, it's just a matter of how much pain you want to endure. If you tell me I will make this quick."

The gun fire around him ceased, and the men he came in with were victorious.

"21354, 21354!"

Jack stood up and looked down at the guard,

"Thank you."

Jack pointed his gun at the guards head, and let out a shot, putting him out of his misery. Jack then sprinted down the other end of the hall, the seven other men following him. He reached the pad and looked back,

"Do not shoot anyone, fire your guns in the air to get their attention. If anyone tries getting away, then shoot. Do you understand?"

The men nodded and Jack turned back around, entering the code into the pad. A buzzing sound echoed through the hall, and the door pushed open. Jack entered the bullpen, the group of men following close behind him. Jack stood in the middle and started firing his gun into the air. Screams filled the room, and it turned into a mass panic. The rest of the men started firing their guns toward the ceiling, and everyone in CTU seemed to immediately stop. The room, besides phones ringing, and the sounds of computers was quite. Jack looked around, and took in his surroundings. He then began to shout,

"Where is your director?"

Before anyone could answer, three security guards came out from behind a corner and sent shots flying. One hit one of the men Jack came in with in the head. Jack dove behind a desk and the rest of the group started firing. Jack popped up, shot one in the head, and another in the chest three times. The group took out the last one. Jack turned back around,

"Who is the director?!"

A woman in the middle of the group stood up, and as soon as Jack saw who it was his Jaw dropped. He had to recollect him self. It was Erin Driscoll, the woman who ran CTU for a while. Also the woman who was responsible for him behind fired from CTU a few years ago. Jack pointed his gun towards her,

"You, take me to your office."

Jack looked at the men he came in with,

"Watch over the prisoners, I want to make sure the facility is safe enough for Anatoli to enter."

The group nodded, and Erin stepped forward. Jack grabbed her by the arm and shoved his into the back of her head and whispered,

"Don't fight it, I promise I won't hurt you."

Jack felt Erin tense up and they began to walk forward. Much live every CTU, the director's office was up a flight of stairs, in the corner of the bullpen so she could watch out over the rest of CTU. They reached the office, Jack flung her out in front of him.

"Get on your knees, now!"

Without saying a word, Erin got on her knees and looked up at Jack.

"What do you want?"

Jack looked at her, pointing his gun toward her head. I'm going to take my mask off, don't react un rationally. Jack pulled the mask off his face, and threw it to the ground. Erin looked at Jack, with wide eyes.

"Jack, what the hell are you doing?"

"Long story short I had to get in under cover with these guys, their planning a terrorist attack. They sent us here to knock you guys off line so you can't stop them."

"What kind of terrorist attack?"

"I don't know yet, there using this operation as a test to see if they can trust me."

Erin sighed,

"How do you plan on taking us offline?"

"EMP."

Erin cursed under her breath,

"It will take hours to recover from this."

Jack nodded,

"I know, but there is nothing I can do about it."

Erin looked at Jack,

"I know."

Jack looked around,

"Is there anyone that can get in our way? This needs to go as perfect as possible."

Erin nodded,

"People can still get in, but if you take me down to a station down on the floor I can lock down the outside from getting in, but you will still be able to get out with my pass code."

Jack nodded,

"What's your pass code?"

"93393"

"Ok, lets go."

Jack grabbed his mask, slid it back over his head and grabbed Erin. They both walked down the metal grated stairs and over to computer station, Erin hit a few keys and looked back up at Jack.

"No one can get in without that pass code I gave you."

And with those words a bullet was sent through the back of Erin's head. Her body slumped forward and Jack caught her. Jack was startled, and looked into her dead eyes. Jack felt the warm blood from her head run over his hand. He knelt down and slid her body on the floor, Jack looked up with rage in his eyes and looked at the man who had shot her.

"WHY THE FUCK DID YOU SHOOT HER!"

The man responded with no emotion in his voice,

"She served her purpose."

Jack felt even more rage build up inside of his body, raised his hand gun and pointed it towards the man.

"I guess you served yours as well then."

Jack pulled the trigger and sent the bullet through his skull. He looked around at the remaining five men and started to shout.

"Shane had me run this for a reason! He defied me, if there is one thing I stand against it's the killing of women and children. Now, if anyone disagrees with me, speak up now!"

Jack looked around and no one spoke,

"Fine, we continue."

Jack looked down at Erin's body and whispered,

"I'm so sorry."

Jack looked back up,

"Give me the radio."

One of the men tossed the radio to Jack, he clicked it on and began to speak into it.

"Anatoli, come to the door. It will be locked from the out side, just radio me when you're there."

"Roger."

Jack walked over to the door and waited for a few seconds.

"Jack, unlock it."

Jack entered the code, the door buzzed and Anatoli and Dimitri entered the room. They both entered the room, carrying a box. They dropped the box, opened it up and pulled out a small EMP bomb. The placed it on the ground, Anatoli hit a few keys and looked at Jack.

"It will go off in thirty seconds, everyone close your eyes."

They all sat there and stared at the bomb till the timer reached five seconds. Everyone closed their eyes, and waited. A bright light flashed through out the room and then darkness. Everything went quite, no more phones ringing, no more computers chirping, nothing. Anatoli pulled out a flash light and shined it on Jack.

"Good job, let's get out of here."

Jack nodded, and the group walked towards the exit.

7:59:57

7:59:58

7:59:59

8:00:00


	6. 8:00 Pm 9:00 PM

Authors Note : Thank you to everyone who has reviewed, I appreciate it. Sorry it took long for an update, I had a little trouble making some filler, but finally filled in the gap, if this chapter feels a little rushed, I'm sorry. The next chapter is going to be jam packed, and I just wanted to hurry up and get to it ). I will continue this story through the end, although right now I'm not sure how I want to do it. I have a story that could go at least twelve chapters, not sure if it could go much further. I'm thinking of ending it at 12, or ending the main threat at 12, taking a month or so break, and thinking of a new plot line to last the final 12 hours. If you guys have any suggestions, please let me know. Enjoy.

The Following Takes Place Between 8:00 PM and 9:00 PM

Jack walked with the rest of the group, his head was spinning and he almost lost his footing. Everything he believed in, he had to go against. Killing innocent people, people who work for the government, people who are working towards the same goal as him. And all for what? To get some terrorist off the streets. Even if he was successful, he would never be able to forgive him self, especially Erin. She did absolutely nothing, she had no reason to be involved in this, no one did. Jack found him self blaming Wayne Palmer, if he hadn't had asked Jack to do this, these people would still be alive. Jack then took a deep breath and realized it wasn't fair to blame it on the President, the people he is working with were to blame, and they're the reason that people like Jack Bauer are in this world. To make sure that more people don't get hurt. Jack cleared his head, and turned back towards Anatoli.

"Where are we going?"

Anatoli looked up,

"There is a van behind the building over there."

Anatoli pointed and Jack noticed the convince store. Jack tucked his gun into his pants and said,

"Man, I'm starving, I need to grab some food before we head out. You guys want anything?"

They all shook their heads,

"Make it quick" Anatoli said.

Jack nodded, and jogged into the store. Jack, the clerk, and another woman were the only people in the store. As soon as Jack walked in the man shouted,

"Honey! It's the man on the news, call the cops!"

Jack pulled out his gun and pointed it at the mans head,

"Call the cops and he dies!"

Both were silent and Jack walked close to the counter looking at the clerk,

"Listen, I'm a federal agent. More than you could ever imagine is going on, I need to use your phone to contact the President."

The man shook, and his face was scrunched up. He didn't say or do anything.

"Phone, now!'

The man quickly snapped out of it, reached under the counter, brought up a cordless phone and put it in Jack's hand.

"Let me go in your stock room."

The clerk walked out from behind the counter and took Jack to the stock room, Jack looked at him,

"Please don't call the cops."

The clerk still didn't look convinced and Jack put his gun into the clerks hand.

"If you don't trust me, shoot me now."

The clerk looked down at the gun and back up at Jack, then at his wife. Looking back at Jack he quietly said,

"Make the call quick."

Jack nodded,

"Thank you."

Jack hit a few numbers on the phone and put it to his ear. A woman on the other end picked up, but before she could get two words out of her mouth Jack began to speak.

"This is Jack Bauer, I need to speak with the President right away."

"Please hold."

Jack looked out the door, to make sure that nobody was watching and leaned back into the store room.

"Jack, any developments?"

"Nothing major yet sir, I believe I'm being taken to where the actual threat is suppose to happen now, I have no idea where it's going down though."

Wayne sighed,

"I do have something though. They had me lead a team into CTU New York to let off a mini EMP to completely disable them."

"Why do they need CTU disabled?"

"To make sure they don't get in their way, they feel CTU is the only major threat to their operation."

Jack could tell Wayne was nodding on the other end of the line,

"That makes sense."

"Also, Erin Driscoll, director of CTU New York was killed during the infiltration."

Wayne sighed heavily,

"Damnit, how many people have to die because of my operation?"

Jack looked confused,

"What do you mean how many people need to die?"

"I guess now is as good as any other time to tell you. Four guards from the prison you encountered are dead. Two more are in critical condition, one is expected to die, the other is expected to live."

Jack closed his eyes and punched the wall as hard as he could.

"Damnit! I tried to make it look believable without putting their lives in danger!"

"Jack, there was nothing you could do."

Jack opened his eyes and looked at the bloodstained wall he just punched. Jack looked back towards the door,

"I need a favor."

"Anything, Jack."

"I want you to call in Bill Buchanan and Karen Hayes to run CTU New York."

Wayne sounded confused,

"I'm sure division will send someone in…"

"With all due respect, anyone from division is just going to slow me down. I may need CTU's resources once they get back online. I know Karen and Bill, they will be a huge asset to have on board for this mission."

"I'll see what I can do."

"Thank you, I need to get going. I'll keep you updated."

"Ok Jack."

Jack hung up the phone, handed it to the clerk and took his USP back.

"Thank you."

Jack walked out of the store, grabbing a pre packaged ham sandwich and a Mountain Dew on his way out.

Chase sat in the chair of the airplane, Chris stood up and looked out the window.

"Were going to start descending, get ready."

Chase looked up,

"How is this going to go down?"

"When we land, just get up, I'll take you into possession. Let me do the talking, don't try anything stupid out there."

Chase nodded, clipped his seat belt in and looked out the window. The view of New York City began to get closer and closer. The sun was now fully set, the sky was dark, but the city was still engulfed by lights. Chase was amazed by the beauty of the city at night, he realized as he was staring down at the city that he always took LA for granted. Chase saw the runway coming up and he looked away and at Chris.

"So, what's to stop them from killing me?"

Chris looked at Chase and kind of smirked,

"Nothing."

Chase expected the answer, and before he could come up with a rebuttal Chris began to speak again,

"But, if you have Jack and myself there, you should be fine. Right?"

Chase nodded,

"Yeah I guess."

The plane started to jerk as it touched down on the ground, the plane finally came to a stop. Chase and Chris both unbuckled themselves and stood up. Chris walked over behind Chase, and grabbed one of his shoulders, he put his gun towards the back of Chase's head and moved towards the exit. Chase opened the hatch of the plane, the stairs slowly went down and they started to walk down them. There were five men waiting outside, as soon as they all saw Chris and Chase they drew their weapons and aimed them at them.

"What's going on, where's Manny?"

Chris looked around and took in his surroundings,

"He's dead, this one escaped and shot him. I got him before he could take out me and the pilot."

A larger man stepped forwards and walked towards them, he grabbed Chase out of Chris's hands and threw him to the ground. He then repeatedly started kicking Chase in the stomach. Chase curled up in a ball, trying to reduce the pain of each blow, he started to cough up blood. After about ten kicks the man pulled out his handgun, cocked it and pointed it at Chase's head. Before he pulled the trigger Chris yelled,

"Wait, don't kill him!"

The man turned to Chris,

"Why?"

Chris hesitated for a second,

"He knows the man that broke Hans out of jail, Jack Bauer."

The man looked at Chris dumbfounded,

"So, what the hell does that have to do with anything?"

"He didn't tell me how he knew him, but think about it. Chase is a L.A.P.D. cop, he was investigating Manny, who is involved with the man that Bauer was breaking out of jail. Put two and two together."

"So, you're saying Bauer is a cop?"

"Sounds too convenient if you ask me."

"I'll call Shane now and let him know."

"They have a lot to deal with right now, why not just wait until we actually meet up with Shane, and let him decided what to do with him."

The man thought for a minute, then nodded.

"Fine, grab Manny's body off the plane and lets go."

Chris nodded, and walked back on the plane.

Jack sat in the back of the van, finishing his last bite of his sandwich. He downed the Mountain Dew and looked around. It was his first real meal in eight months, and it was delicious. As soon as he finished Anatoli, who was driving the van turned his head to the back.

"Jack, we have a problem."

Jack crawled up to the front and looked in front of him, it was a road block and they were searching every car.

"It has to be for you and Hans."

Jack nodded,

"Shit."

Jack thought to himself for a minute, pulled out his USP, he still had his three full clips. Cocking the gun back he looked forward again,

"When it's our turn drive through."

"But.."

"Just do it, I'll take care of it."

Jack moved towards the door of the van and opened it slightly. He waited a few minutes then Anatoli yelled,

"I'm going now! Brace yourselves!"

Jack grabbed onto the side of the van as Anatoli punched the pedal and the van sped off. Jack heard the wood of the road blocks shattering apart and that was his cue. He flung the door of the van all the way open, only to see three cops and two cars. He immediately aimed at the two cars and shot out both of their tires. Not long after that another cop car started chasing them down, firing at Jack. Jack closed the van door, waited for a few seconds popped it back open and began firing at the officers. They were swerving, hindering Jack from getting a shot on their tires. The car started rear ending the van. Jack realized he wouldn't be able to do anything from the van, he ejected a fresh clip into his USP and looked back.

"Keep driving!" He shouted.

He flung the door open once more, and hurled his body onto the hood of the police car. He hit the car with a thud, and immediately grabbed onto the indent between the windshield and the hood of the car. The car started swerving, trying to throw Jack off, and they almost succeeded, Jack's body was almost completely flung off the car when he grabbed the passengers side window to keep himself on. A few seconds later Jack felt the window close on his fingers and he began to scream in agony. Jack quickly brought his handgun over to the window and smashed it in, freeing his hand. Jack quickly brought up his gun and started firing through the windshield. The windshield finally broke, and the bullets pierced both men in the chest, not killing them but enough to make them stop the car. Jack went flying off the car and hit the cement. The wind was knocked out of him, but he had no time to waste. The van in front of him stopped, Jack quickly got up, ran to the van, closed the doors behind him and the van sped off.

Littletown, New Jersey 8:26:32 PM

Karen Hayes let the luke warm water run over the plate she held in her hand. She had just started washing dishes after her and Bill had just finished their pork and rice pilaf. Bill was in their bed room, changing after a long day of work. After they were both demoted from their positions in the government, Bill took up a job at a security software company, and Karen was doing work in a lawyers office. It wasn't their dream life, but they were doing enough to get by. Karen had just finished rinsing the last plate when the house phone rang. Karen quickly dried her hands and looked at the caller ID. When she read the number, she was shocked. It was the kind of number you'd normally see from a Government call. Karen pressed the talk button and firmly placed the phone to her ear.

"Hello?"

"Please hold for the President."

Karen's eyes grew wide, she quickly ran up the stairs to her and Bill's bed room. Bill looked at her,

"Who's that?"

"The President."

Bill looked surprised and he stopped unbuttoning his shirt, Karen put the phone on speakerphone and set it on the table. The President's voice came crackling through the phone.

"Karen?"

"Yes Mr. President."

"It's good to talk to you, although I wish it could be under better circumstances."

Karen wrinkled her nose, frowning a little bit.

"What's wrong sir?"

"Well, first things first. I wanted to get you back into my cabinet when I resumed presidency. But when something like your situation happens it's hard to just get somebody back in, and now I feel bad asking for your help, but its not only me who needs you and Bill. It's Jack Bauer, he is asking for you two."

Before Karen could respond Bill began to speak,

"What's going on with Jack? I saw him on the news today."

"Eight months ago we received some intel that a terrorist group was going to be launching some kind of attack on the US. The man that Jack broke out, Hans is part of that terrorist group. We used Jack to get close to them and try to find out what their plan was."

"Has he got anything?"

"Not yet, but I just talked to him a few minutes ago. He thinks he's close."

Karen continued talking,

"So, what does Jack need from us?"

"Jack had to infiltrate CTU New York and unleash a mini EMP bomb, to knock out their systems. During that Director Erin Driscoll was killed. Jack wants you to take over for the remainder of this mission. He and myself both feel you'd be a huge asset."

Bill looked at Karen and nodded,

"We can leave now, it will take us about hour and half or two hours to get there."

"Both of you, thank you very much. I will make sure you guys are reinstated to anywhere you want for your work."

"Thank you Mr. President."

Bill hung up the phone and looked at Karen, Karen nodded back at Bill.

"Lets get ready."

Jack grunted in pain as he looked down at his fingers, they were still a dark red, and were reeling with pain. Jack shook the pain off and started talking to Anatoli,

"Where are we going?"

"You're going to find out now."

The van came to a stop, Anatoli got out and opened the back doors. Jack looked around and saw that he was in a heavily vacated parking lot. Jack turned around to see where they were, they were in a mall parking lot, and the entrance they were parked in front of was for a Best Buy. A black Ford Explorer pulled up and inside were Shane and Hans. They both looked at Jack and Hans said,

"Get in."

Jack hopped in the car and started asking questions.

"What's going on?"

Shane turned around from the passengers seat,

"First things first, good job at CTU. I heard what happened with the girl, and how you killed one of our men. I would of done the same thing, it was an unnecessary death, I'm sorry you had to witness that."

Jack nodded,

"Now as far as what's going, on, you'll find out in a minute. Were having a quick debrief before we go in."

Jack looked out the window as they drove. They drove around the mall and came to a part of the parking lot that didn't have as many people parked in it. The explorer stopped next to a white van and everyone got out. Shane walked over to the van, popped open the door, Hans walked inside, Jack followed and Shane came in behind them. The van was full of monitoring equipment. There were about five men wearing full tactical gear, outside of the van Jack could hear more cars pull up and he assumed that it was more men. Hans sat on a seat next to Jack, Jack leaned against the wall and listened to Shane as he began to speak.

"Most of you know the plan, but there is a couple of us in here that don't."

Shane looked at Jack and continued speaking,

"So, for those of you that don't know. I'm going to explain this to you right now."

Shane started pacing back and forth in the van.

"Two years ago, and underground facility was built by someone in the United States Government. This underground facility was not authorized by the President of The United States, so very few know about it. We happened to "stumble" across information about this facility thanks to someone on the inside. They decided to locate this facility some where hard to find, where no one would expect. So they chose to build it here, and put this mall over it. This was the fastest built mall in history, only taking four months to build. The facility took six months."

Shane stopped pacing and stopped talking. Jack was looking at him,

"So, what importance does this facility have?"

Shane nodded,

"I'm getting there. There is only one entrance to this facility, and that is through the warehouse in the Best Buy located in the mall."

Jack recalled when he was looking at a computer monitor back at the base and it was showing footage from a storage area / warehouse and realized it was that of the Best Buy.

"The manager of the Best Buy was placed there by this high ranking Government official, and he is one of the few people to know about it and have access to it."

"How the hell do they hide the entrance to an underground facility when every employee has access to the warehouse?"

"That much we don't know, we had security footage of the warehouse, but the cameras never pan on the entrance. The reason we chose today is because the high ranking Government official was visiting the facility today, we figured we'd be able to see him enter the facility, but the camera never shows it."

Jack began to process everything, then asked the next logical question.

"Who's the Government official?"

"Secretary of Defense James Heller."

Jack's eyes grew wide and his heart sunk down into his chest. He had to take it all in, as soon as he heard that name Audrey came to mind, everything from the past he was trying to forget came back and hit him, hard.

"You ok Jack?" Shane interrupted. Jack snapped out of it and looked up,

"Yeah, I'm just a bit surprised that such a high ranking official can get away with something like this… Now the next question, what does the facility house?"

"It's a new weapon development facility. Weapons that the President would never use, but are being made for our own defense. There are two weapons in particular that we are interested in. These two weapons, if acquired and used in the right way. Could completely change the world as we know it. Rendering all forms of Government useless. We will bring a world where the people run everything, no Government what so ever. That's the perfect world for people like us, right Jack? No more working for nothing."

Jack smiled and nodded,

"What kind of weapons are down there?"

"That, you will have to wait till this is over to find out."

Jack nodded in agreement,

"Understandable."

There was a knock at the van door, Hans popped the door open and man in a leather jacket and blue jeans stood there.

"George just called, Manny was killed by the L.A.P.D officer that they captured earlier. Manny's friend Chris is still alive. They are going to be here in about ten minutes."

Shane sighed after hearing the news about Manny and looked at his watch,

"We're already behind schedule, when they arrive send them in."

The man nodded and walked away from the van. Jack looked back at Shane,

"A place like Best Buy doesn't close until ten or eleven o clock. How do you plan on getting in?"

Shane looked over at one of the men in the van, Jack heard every one else call him Gruber a couple of times.

"Show him what's under your outfit."

Gruber took off his vest and shirt that was underneath. He was wearing a vest, strapped with C4.

"You're going to use suicide bombings to get in? Are you fucking kidding me?"

Shane laughed,

"Were not actually going to use them, were sending in a team of twenty men, ten of them will be wearing these vests. We will then make announcements, we are going to separate the customers from the employees, and lock them all in the store. The mall closes at nine, but since Best Buy has a separate entrance it will be easy to contain everyone."

Jack rubbed his head and looked down at his watch, it was now eight fifty five. Five minutes from now, his eight months of under cover would finally have some meaning. Jack looked back up,

"Fine, say this does work. How are we going to contain people calling out on cell phones?"

"At nine o clock we have an hour of blocked cell phone coverage in this area."

Jack nodded and continued thinking,

"The mall may close at nine, but what about the clean up crew?"

"Clean up crews clean Best Buy in the morning before the store opens, we go in Best Buy at nine o clock, at five past nine our plans commence, we should be out of there by ten o clock. Incase it takes longer, you and our other men are going to collect the customers cell phones, so no one can call out when our coverage is over."

Those were words Jack didn't want to hear, he knew he wouldn't be included in the actual retrieval of these weapons.

"Who's going to get the weapons?"

"James Heller has five personal guards with him. Me, Anatoli, Hans and Ryan, another one of my men should be able to take them out easily. Everyone else will be unarmed."

Jack knew they had this planned down to a T, but there was one thing he had forgot to mention.

"And what's stopping customers from coming into Best Buy."

Shane smiled,

"Jack, you underestimate me my friend. We have four men disguised as police officers who will sit outside the store, were going to have them hold off customers, telling them that there is flooding problems and will be closed for the rest of the night."

Jack looked around again and back down at his watch, eight fifty eight, they would be heading in soon.

"Jack, you and a group of the ten un strapped men will go in first. I want you to scout the area, and appoint your men in positions you see fit."

Shane handed Jack a head piece,

"Move in now, and let me know when your all in place."

Jack tucked the small little earpiece in side his ear and nodded. Shane handed him a clip for his USP. Jack checked the gun, and slipped the clip into his pocket. Jack stood up, opened the van door and hopped out. Out side the van, were ten men, all in civilian clothes. Jack looked at them all,

"Two go in at a time, we can't raise to much suspicion"

Jack watched as two men started walking, Jack looked at another two men and said,

"Follow me, if we run into the mall now we can go in through the mall entrance."

They both nodded, Jack then started to jog towards the first mall exit. The three men entered, and walked for about a minute, they passed EB games then directly on the right was Best Buy. People were walking by them towards the exit of the mall. Jack walked into Best Buy to be greeted by one of the associates at the L.P. desk.

"Hello, welcome to Best Buy."

Jack smiled and nodded, walking past him. The two men followed in close behind him, Jack looked at them.

"One go to the appliances section, another two the digital camera department. I'm going to take computers."

Jack walked towards the right back end of the store and reached computers. It wasn't particularly busy, so an associate immediately came over to him.

"Hi, welcome to Best buy, is there anything I can help you with?"

Jack shook his head,

"No, just comparing prices right now for a lap top for my daughter for college, if I need any help I'll let you know."

The young kind smiled,

"My names Alex, just give me a holler."

"Will do."

Jack continued to pace around the department, acting like he was looking at the laptops. He was sure to keep his head down, incase anyone saw his picture on the news. Jack look at the stores surroundings.

"I want two men in the home theater department, another one in car radios"

Jack took a count, he had one in appliances, one on digital cameras, two in home theater and one in car radios. So he had five more to spare.

"I want one at the Geek Squad and Customer Service area, another at GPS and one towards the warehouse door."

"Two more with me in computers, and one more at the front of the store."

Jack watched all his men spread out, and two more entered the computers section. Jack spoke into the headset,

"Shane, we are a go. We just have to wait for the mall entrance to be closed."

"Copy that Jack, let me know when the gate is down."

Jack looked down at the floor, and imagined what was going on down below him.

8:59:57

8:59:58

8:59:59

9:00:00


	7. 9:00 Pm 10:00 PM

**The Following Takes Place Between 9:00 PM and 10:00 PM**

Kim was laying on the couch of the S.W.A.T. office when something woke her up out of her sleep. She looked up and saw Chase's partner entering the room. She pushed her self up and stretched,

"Has anyone heard from Chase yet?"

"No, not yet."

Kim began to grow more nervous, it has been two hours and still no word from Chase. She knew there was nothing she could really do, but she had made up her mind.

"I'm flying to New York."

Chase's partner looked at her like she was crazy,

"There is nothing you can do, and good luck getting a flight at this time. You're staying here."

Kim pushed herself up out of the seat, walked to the door and opened it. She looked back before exiting the room,

"I may not be able to do anything, but I can't just sit here and do nothing at all."

Kim closed the door behind her and walked towards the exit of the station.

Jack was playing around on a Toshiba laptop, acting like he was looking at it, when a noise caught his attention. He quickly looked up towards the mall entrance of Best Buy and saw the gate closing. Jack began to speak into his microphone,

"Gate is coming down now."

Shane's voice crackled into his ear,

"Roger that, moving in now. Now when I give the word, all men draw their fire arms and discharge them, don't shoot anyone just get their attention. Jack I then want you to get on the P.A. and announce what is happening."

"Roger that."

Jack looked up and watched the individual entrance as the group of men came in one by one, about thirty seconds behind each other. Once they were all in, Shane and Hans entered. Shane walked towards Jack in the computer section, Hans walked back towards the warehouse. Shane nodded at Jack, walked by him and nodded. Jack nodded back, Shane got towards the front of the store and began speaking again.

"Everyone, now. Discharge your weapons."

Jack looked towards the entrance and saw that the "police officers" were out side blocking the entrance. The first rounds of gun fire broke out and the store erupted into a mass panic. Jack, and the two other men in computers both shot their guns in the air, following this were more screams and cowering. Shane's men with the C4 all began to get on high ground, counters, display shelves, anything they could be seen on, through out the whole store and ripped off their over coats, exposing the C4. More people screamed, and some tried running towards the exit to only be stopped.

"Jack, make the announcement."

Jack walked over to the kid who helped him earlier, pointed a gun towards his head and began to talk an intimidating voice.

"How do I get a message through the whole store?"

The kid began to shake, and he looked as if he was going to cry.

"Uhmm.. Uhmm"

Jack fired off a shot by his ear and began to scream,

"HOW DO I GET A MESSAGE THORUGH THE WHOLE STORE?!"

The kid jumped, and swallowed hard. He turned, pointed to a phone about ten feet away and said,

"Dial 60, speak, then hang up."

Jack nodded,

"Sit down, and sit on your hands."

The kid immediately obeyed Jack and sat down. Jack looked at the rest of the customers and employees around him,

"All of you, sit on your hands now. Or I will shoot you."

Everyone immediately complied, as one person was sitting down he said,

"That is the terrorist on T.V."

Jack quickly walked over to the man and kicked him in the chest,

"Shut up, did I tell you to speak?"

The man cowered,

"No…no.."

"Good."

Jack walked over to the phone, grabbed it off the hook and hit 60.

"Attention all employees and customers. This is a take over. As you can see all our men are strapped with a large amount of C4 explosives, if anyone tries anything we will not hesitate to kill you all. This can go as simple as possible, or you can try to be a hero and make something out of it. Your choice. All customers report to the Geek Squad area, and sit on your hands. All employees do the same but go to the customer service desk. Also note that we have blocked satellite coverage to the area, if you try to call anyone your call will not go through. Everybody move now."

Jack hung up the phone and waited to hear his message repeated. After a few seconds the message came up, and played through out the store. Jack looked at the fear in peoples eyes, he saw little kids crying in their mothers arms, that sight broke him. Right then and there he wanted to stop, and just get everyone out of there. None of them deserved this. Once the message stopped playing, everyone in the store got up, almost simultaneously and started walking towards the front of the store. Jack met up with Shane at the front, Shane's team followed. Three men stood up on top of the customer service desk with their vest and watched as everyone walked towards the front. Shane stood beside Jack and leaned in towards his ear,

"Were going to find this manager, and have him let us in."

"How do you know the manager is here?"

"Heller was coming here today, he has to be here."

Jack nodded , Jack turned his head for one second and that's when someone tackled him. One of the customers in the store tackled him, and another went after Shane. Shane immediately drew his gun and fired a shot into the mans head. Jack hit the ground, as the man was falling on top of him, he lifted his knee up and slammed it into his stomach. The man let out a heavy sigh of pain, Jack pushed him off and stood up, brought out his gun and pointed it at he mans head. Jack looked at everyone in the store and started yelling,

"Someone else try that shit, and we all die. We're here for a purpose, and not afraid to kill for it."

Women and children were crying, everyone else was pretty much quiet.

"Now, get to your god damned areas and sit on your hands now!"

People started moving, Jack grabbed the man that tackled him by the shirt and threw him into the customer service area. Everyone had finally got behind the desk and Shane continued with the plan. He stood up on the customer service desk with everyone else and looked around at everybody sitting down. He looked over to the employees,

"No one say a word or ask questions, but there is a certain manager in here that knows something about this building that no one else knows. So, if you're that manager I suggest you speak now."

Everyone looked confused and scared, but no one said anything. Shane pointed his gun towards a middle aged employee.

"Speak now."

The employee started to shake and plead,

"No, please… I have a fam…"

Shane looked at him annoyed,

"Oh really? You have a family? So do I, there the reason I'm doing this. If you want to see your family again I suggest the person I'm looking for speaks up now."

No one still said anything and Shane pulled the trigger sending a bullet through his head. Brains and gore exploded on people sitting next to him. Again the store erupted in screams, Shane let off a couple of shot in the air and screamed.

"SILIENCE!"

Shane hopped off the counter and grabbed the youngest employee he could find, put a gun to his head and asked.

"How old are you, fifteen, sixteen?"

"Six… sixteen sir."

Shane looked at all the employees,

"Sixteen fucking years old. If someone doesn't speak up now, he will have only lived sixteen god damned years. Don't make me do this."

Jack grabbed Shane and pushed the kid away,

"What the fuck are you doing? He's a god damned kid."

Shane quickly turned towards Jack pointing the gun to his head,

"God damn it Jack, we don't have time to fuck around. Let me do my job or I will shoot you."

Jack looked shocked, but he knew Shane was serious. Jack looked at him,

"Fine, do what the fuck you have to do. But this shit is on your conscious."

Shane turned and grabbed the kid again,

"I'm giving this kid to the count of three."

"One.."

Shane waited and still no one said anything,

"Two…"

The room was still completely silent.

"Three."

Shane inched his finger on the trigger and a man stood up,

"Wait, wait! I'm the one that you want. It's me"

Shane looked at the man, he was about 6'0, brown hair, maybe 170 pounds, not very built. Blue eyes, and was wearing glasses, Shane guessed he was in his mid thirties early forties. Shane looked at him,

"Fucking prick, almost make me kill a kid. Get over here."

The man stepped out from the crowd, Jack grabbed him and Shane looked at his name tag. It read Greg.

"Greg, where is the managers room?"

Greg pointed straight ahead and Jack started walking with him. They reached the far right sight of the store and there was a room, the door read LDR. Greg pointed,

"In here."

Jack pushed him inside and Shane grabbed Jack.

"Jack, you're a huge asset to this operation, but you ever pull that shit again, I will have you killed no questions ask."

Jack didn't step down,

"You almost killed a god damn kid Shane.."

"I have to do what I have to do, now come on. I want you to help me get the info out of him."

Shane walked into the room, Jack followed and closed the door behind him. Shane slammed Greg down into a computer chair and immediately began asking questions.

"You know why were here…"

Greg looked at Shane with cold eyes,

"I don't believe I do. What is it that you think I know?"

Shane smiled,

"Now you're going to try and act all tough."

Shane punched him in the head and began raising his voice,

"Where is the entrance to the weapons facility?"

Greg looked up at Shane dumbfounded, rubbing his head.

"What the fuck are you talking about?"

Shane went to punch Greg again and Jack grabbed him,

"I was specialized in interrogation, let me see what I can do."

Shane nodded and backed off,

"What ever I do, don't interrupt."

Jack stood in front of Greg and knelt down,

"Listen, it's not our intentions to hurt anyone one. All we want to know is the location of the weapons facility, how do we get there?"

Greg looked at Jack dead in the eyes,

"Not your intentions to hurt anyone, then why the hell did you shoot Eric?"

Jack pushed him self up,

"I'm asking the questions. You gave your self up, it's clearly obvious you know something."

"Who says I wasn't just saving Adams life?"

Jack smiled,

"Ok, so lets say you were saving the kids life. What's to stop me from killing you right now?"

"Absolutely nothing."

Jack sort of smiled,

"That's right, absolutely nothing. But I'm not going to kill you, that's to easy. I'm going to make sure you feel as much pain as possible before you give up the information I need."

Jack knew he struck a nerve with Greg. Greg lunged forward,

"I DON'T KNOW ANYTHING!"

Jack pushed the man's chest sending him flying back in the chair. Jack turned to Shane,

"You got a knife on you?"

Shane handed Jack a switch blade, Jack hit the button popping the blade out.

"Get behind him and hold him down."

Shane followed what Jack told him to do, Jack once again knelt down, talking as he was kneeling.

"I used to work for the Government my self, during my time with the Government, I was captured by the Chinese and tortured. I learned a few things from them."

Jack ripped Greg's shoes and socks off. Greg began kicking, Jack grabbed his foot and squeezed until he stopped. Jack then put the knife between the mans big and second toe.

"One of the most painful places to be cut on the human body is between the toes and fingers."

Jack quickly slit in between the toes and Greg started grunting in pain.

"Now it's painful when they are just sliced. But when you dig the blade into the skin, hurts like a bitch."

Jack started digging the blade deep into his skin, Greg screamed and tried kicking his foot. Jack held it steady and looked up at him.

"I am willing to do this to every one of your toes, and I can tell you. It only hurts more with each one. So, you tell me where the weapons facility entrance is located, or I will keep going."

Greg was gritting his teeth, he looked down at Jack and said.

"I..don't … know… anything."

Jack nodded,

"I'm sure you don't."

Jack brought the knife between the next two toes and did the same exact thing. He began to scream again, Shane held him firmly against the chair. Jack pushed him self up and punched the man in the chest.

"TELL ME WHERE THE GOD DAMNED ENTRANCE IS!"

"I DON'T FUCKING KNOW!"

Jack grabbed the mans hand, put the knife to his index finger and cut it clean off. Letting the finger fall to the floor. Shane looked at Jack in disgust. Greg was screaming in even more agony and almost started to cry.

"I don't know anything damn it!"

Jack walked away for a minute and spoke on his headset.

"Hans, are you in the warehouse?"

"Yeah, but I don't see anything."

"Do you see any cleaning solutions back there?"

"Let me look."

Jack looked at Greg, who was know rocking back and forth trying to cope with the pain. Hans came back on the radio,

"Yeah we have some."

"Can you bring it to the front of the store?"

"For what?"

"Just do it, please."

"One second."

As Jack was waiting, Shane walked over to him and grabbed Jack's arm.

"He's not going to break, we have to threaten him personally."

Jack slowly turned his head towards Shane,

"With all due respect, you asked me to come along with you for a god damn reason. I give you results, now will you let me do what the fuck I do best and get information out of him?!"

Shane was surprised by Jack's outrage,

"I don't like this tone you've been taken with me Jack. Have you forgotten who had that chopper waiting for you on the outside?"

"If you don't like my attitude, kill me. If you can do this all with out me, kill me then. I've cut off a finger and he still hasn't talked. Do you think he's just going to open up?"

Shane knew in the back of his head that Jack was right, he hated the fact, but he was right. Shane nodded,

"Fine.."

Shane turned and walked back towards Greg. Hans entered the room and handed Jack the cleaner. Hans peered into the room and saw Greg with his finger missing,

"Holy shit.."

"He won't give up the information."

Jack turned, untwisted the cap on the cleaning solution and looked at Greg.

"How do I get into the facility?"

Greg looked up, he was tired. He lost a lot of blood from that one finger, and Jack knew he didn't have a lot of time before he blacked out.

" I don.."

Before Greg could finish Jack poured the cleaner on his hand, Greg started screaming in agony. Jack slammed the bottle down,

"WHERE IS IT?!"

He was still screaming, and looked at Jack.

"I can't… I can't tell you."

Jack jumped towards Greg, leaning close to his face, and started whispering,

"What ever you think the Government will do to you, its no where near as bad as what I will do.. Now, before I start removing more body parts, tell me where the damn entrance is!"

Greg started sobbing,

"I…"

Jack immediately took out his knife and shoved it into Greg's knee cap. Greg tossed his head back and screamed in more agony. Jack grabbed the cleaner and held it over the wound,

"WHERE IS IT!?!?"

Right before Jack had the bottle all the way tipped Greg finally broke.

"The warehouse! It's in the warehouse."

"We know it's in the warehouse, but where in the warehouse?"

"Trash compactor, crawl inside, inside there will be a slot for a key. If you put that key in it activates an elevator, it will take you down."

"Where's they key?"

Greg reached into his back pocket with his good hand.

"Here."

Jack grabbed the key and tossed it to Shane. Shane got the key, pulled out his gun and shot Greg in the head. Jack looked at Greg's body then back up at Shane,

"Let me go with you."

"We're sticking with our plan, I need you to go out there and collect cell phones in a bag."

Jack frowned,

"Fine."

He started to walk away when Shane spoke,

"Jack.."

He quickly turned his head,

"What?"

"Good work."

Jack turned back around and walked out towards the customer service section. As he was walking he heard Shane come over the intercom,

"We're going into the facility, I want everyone, along with Jack to collect cell phones. It looks like we're going to be here past ten."

The men at customer service started grabbing Best Buy bags and going through crowds. Jack joined everyone at the customer service desk, and grabbed a bag.

"I'll take care of customers, you guys get the employees."

Jack started walking through the crowd of customers collecting their cell phones. Everyone pretty much gave up their phone easily, Jack grabbed one of the phones and slipped it into his own pocket. He walked past one mother who was sitting down with her son, who was balling his eyes out. Jack couldn't take it and knelt down next to her. She looked at Jack,

"What do you want?" She asked in a nervous tone. Jack looked back at her with compassion in his eyes,

"Everything is going to be alright, you will all get out of here alive."

She looked at Jack oddly,

"How do you know?"

Jack swallowed hard, knowing he shouldn't say anything, but he had to calm them down in some way.

"I'm a government agent, I'm undercover. I won't let anything happen to you all?"

She looked shocked and whispered,

"You're a government agent, and you let them kill that employee?"

"There was nothing I could do, like I said. I'm undercover."

The woman looked at Jack with hatred in her eyes,

"My son is sick, he needs to use the bathroom."

Jack nodded and stood up, grabbing her arm. One of Shane's men looked at him,

"What are you doing?"

"Her son is sick, he needs the bathroom, I'll be right back."

The woman was carrying her son, Jack gently grabbed her by the arm and brought her to the men's room. Both of them went inside the bathroom, and Jack waited outside. He heard the front doors opening, he quickly peeked outside and what he saw next would now change everything. Five men walked into the building escorting two people. The person in the front Jack couldn't make out, but the person in the back was Chase. Jack looked shock and muttered under his breath,

"Shit."

Jack knew he had to get into the warehouse, and fast. Jack exited the bathroom area, and looked towards the warehouse. There were three people around the warehouse that would block him from getting in. Jack turned back into the men's room to check on them.

"Something is about to go down, I need you to get back to customer service."

"What's going on?"

"I have to make a move now, or someone is going to die."

The woman picked up her son and started walking out,

"If you hear gunshots, just keep your head down. Ok?"

The woman nodded and started running back towards the customer service desk. Jack took in his surroundings and tried figuring out a way he could do this without raising to much suspicion. He needed to take out three people, and quietly. Jack walked through the home theater department which lead to the warehouse. Jack snuck up to one of the men and grabbed him from the back, pulling him into an isle. He slammed the man on the floor and dug his knee into his back. Jack then quickly grabbed his neck, snapped it, and let the body lie limp. Jack stood up and peered out of the corner of the isle. Their was two men standing in front of the door, the only option Jack had was to shoot them both. Jack knelt down, and pulled a silencer out from his pouch. He quickly attached it to his gun, and leaned back up against the shelf. He quickly peeked out, shot once, sending a bullet through one of the men's chest.

He quickly took aim again, firing twice, both hitting the second man in the chest. He quickly ran out, grabbed one of the bodies and dragged it to the warehouse. He grabbed the other body and did the same. He dragged them all the way to the back of the warehouse and left them there. Jack walked to the front of the warehouse to find the trash compactor. He quickly opened it, grabbed both sides and slid his body inside. He pulled out his cell phone to use as a light. He crawled for about thirty feet then came to the huge drop off. Jack knew just by looking at the drop there was no way he could climb down the whole thing without falling. He laid on his back, and pulled his shirt off, now just laying there in a bullet proof vest. Jack wrapped the shirt around both of his hands and grabbed the elevator line. He took one last breath, and lunged his body off the ledge of the shaft. His body was moving at incredible speeds down the shaft, after about ten seconds of sliding Jack could make out the top of the elevator, and started to prepare himself for the impact. His feet slammed into the elevator, letting go of the cable he fell backwards with a loud thud, and the wind got knocked out of him. After he regained his breath, he threw the shirt down, and looked around. He was still in the shaft, ontop of the elevator. Below him was a small latch that would give him access to the facility. Jack unlocked the hatch, and slowly opened it up.

Jack peeked inside the well lit elevator, and no one was inside. He quietly lowered him self down and closed the hatch behind him. Once in the elevator he walked over to the control panel, hit the "open door" button, and waited to be granted access to the facility.

9:59:57

9:59:58

9:59:59

10:00:00


	8. 10:00 PM To 11:00 PM

****

The Following Takes Place Between 10:00 PM and 11:00 PM

Ding. The sound of the elevators doors opening filled the surrounding area, and within two seconds Jack was trying to make out what was in the dark room. There were a couple of monitors hanging up on the wall directly in front of him, to the left was just a blank wall, same thing on the right. Jack figured this was a security check point and stepped forward. There was a dim light in the room, the first thing Jack noticed when he stepped forward were two men, dressed in business suits, on the floor, both with blood trails coming from their heads. Jack knelt down beside them and checked their pulses, both dead. He stood up and stepped forward. The door automatically slid open, and Jack slowly crept into the next room. Someone was standing in front of Jack, thirty feet away, with their back facing him. Jack crouched down, and crept towards the figure. He grabbed the person by the chest, and slammed his fist over his mouth, dragging him back to the previous room he was just in. Tossing him to the ground, Jack quickly drew his gun and pointed it at his head. The person turned around quickly, but remaining on the ground. It was Anatoli, he looked up at Jack with confusion and anger.

"Jack, what the fuck are you doing?"

Jack knelt over and ripped the head piece out of his ear, stomping it against the cement floor of the facility.

"I'm a federal agent, I have been undercover for the past eight months. I'm here to stop whatever Shane and Hans are doing."

Anatoli looked at Jack in shock, and in disgust.

"You son of a bitch, you've been playing us?"

Jack nodded and sort of smirked,

"That's right."

Anatoli let out a sigh,

"How much do they know?"

"The government knows nothing yet, Shane and Hans have barley told me anything."

"Good."

Jack clicked the hammer back on his gun.

"Let me go."

Jack smiled,

"I'm not letting any of you go."

Jack pulled the trigger and the bullet pierced Anatoli's chest. His body went limp against the wall and slid down to the floor. Jack knelt down beside his body to check if he had anything useful. He was carrying the same hand gun as Jack, a USP. Jack grabbed that gun and the two clips he had in his pocket, stuffing them into his pocket. Jack sprung himself back up, and quickly made his way to the next room.

President Palmer was looking down at the paper on his desk when his phone rang. He quickly picked it up and answered,

"Yeah?"

"Mr. President I have Warden Johnson on the phone."

Wayne sighed,

"I can't deal with this now, I'm waiting to hear for Jack Bauer."

There was a slight pause,

"Sir, he claims to be going on the air within the hour, I suggest you take it."

"Fine, put him through."

There was silence for about five seconds until Wayne finally spoke,

"Warden Johnson."

"Mr. President."

"I have been informed that you are going on the air within the hour? With what claims?"

Wayne spun out of his chair, pushed him self out and paced his office.

"You know what I'm going to do Sir. I'm going to let the media know about your undercover operation."

Wayne stopped, and looked at the receiver as if it were actually the warden standing in front of him.

"And what would you get out of letting the media know about something like this at this time of night."

"I plan on going on the air during the eleven o clock news, plenty of people will be watching this. And besides, it's only seven over in L.A. Plenty of people will know what your doing."

"What am I doing, Warden?"

"Allowing the death's of innocent men, men trying to keep their cities safe from people that shouldn't be roaming the streets."

Wayne grew short temper and almost enraged,,

"Do you think I planned for the death's of those officers? Do you think I had planned to have a god damned well known terrorist in a public prison system? I had no control over this and I had to do what I had to do!"

"You could of pulle.."

Wayne abruptly interrupted him,

"I could of what? Pulled him out of the prison?! If I did that he would of known something was going on, and we wouldn't be at the current stage we are at now!"

"And what stage is that Mr. President?"

"Jack Bauer, the man who broke Hans out, is moving in on what ever they were planning. They will be stopped within the next few hours."

Warden Johnson laughed, and spoke again.

"So, you still don't even know what the hell they're doing. That's just great."

"Think what you want, but I can assure you I'm not an enemy you want to have, especially not today."

The warden considered his words, and spoke again.

"I'll give you two hours before I go on the air. Two hours Mr. President."

Wayne laughed right back at him,

"YOU'RE giving ME two hours, who do you think YOU'RE talking to?"

"A man who sanctions the death of innocent, good men. I will speaking with you Mr. President."

The line went dead. Wayne slammed his fist on the desk and rubbed his temples.

Jack slowly crept into the next room as quietly as he could. The room was similar to the last room that he was in, nothing on the two sides of the room, but directly in front of him was an open door leading out into a huge warehouse area. The room in front of him was well lit, but right in front of the door was a pile of boxes so nothing could be seen, but he could hear voices from the other side of the wall of boxes. Jack walked into the next room had to adjust his eyes as he entered the bright room. To the left there was another wall, to the right the room extended to a back wall about fifty feet away. The boxes were stacked over about ten feet to the right. Jack swiftly pressed his back against the boxes, and side stepped over to the edge of the wall. Jack inhaled to keep himself quite, and peeked around the corner. The room was surrounded with all kinds of benches and workstations, there were a couple of empty missle shells laying around. The wall all the way to the back of the room was covered with computers. All the way to the left wall there was a giant screen with all kinds of information on it. The first thing Jack noticed was that the floor was littered with bodies of people in white suits. Jack leaned back in and exhaled. He could still hear the voices but he couldn't see where they were coming from. Jack crouched down, quietly stepping to out from behind the wall of boxes.

As quietly as he could, he jogged over to one of the workstations and crept behind the short wall that it had. Jack peeked inside the workstation, it was set up like a big cubicle. In this particular work station there was an incubator of some sort. Jack quickly ducked back down behind the cubicle, stood up and moved forward to the last work station in the row. This lead out into the main area of the warehouse, and Jack could finally make out who was talking. Jack peeked his head out again, he could see Hans, Shane, and two other men he didn't know. One of the men had Chase knelt down on his knees, pointing a gun to the back of his head. The other man had his back turned towards him, Jack couldn't make out who it was, but the voice sounded familiar. Hans was behind James Heller with a gun to the back of his head as well. All of Heller's security was dead, the whole situation seemed to be out of Jack's control. The group continued to speak. Shane looked at everyone around him,

"You didn't think something like this would ever happen?" Shane laughed in a mockingly way. Heller looked up at him with hatred in his eyes,

"No one was suppose to know about this, I thought we had any leaks covered."

Shane laughed again,

"Apparently not Mr. Secretary. And now, your government, my government, and every other government in the world is going to pay the price for your foolish mistake."

Heller looked up,

"No matter what you plan on doing, no matter what you try or think you can do. You will be stopped."

Shane looked down and kicked Heller in the jaw,

"Is that a fact?"

Before Heller could make a wise comment, which Jack expected him to do, someone began speaking over the headset.

"Shane, do you copy?"

Shane stopped, and pressed the receiver,

"Yeah, what's going on?"

"We found three of our men dead, and Jack Bauer's missing."

Jack's heart sunk, and he listened closely.

"What the fuck do you mean three men are dead?!"

"We found Rossum, his neck was snapped. Ferguson and Daniels both had bullet wounds. Ferguson was shot in the head, Daniels in the chest, both of their bodies were in the warehouse."

Shane sighed,

"Son of a bitch, do you think it was Bauer?"

"It's the only logical explanation."

Heller looked up,

"Bauer? Jack Bauer?"

Son of a bitch! Jack thought to himself. Shane spoke back into the headset,

"Hold on one second."

He looked back down at Heller,

"What do you know about Jack Bauer?"

Heller hesitated for a second, then looked back up.

"Jack Bauer is a government agent, he used to work for CTU up until a few years ago when he started working for me. But he some how always got dragged back into some sort of mess. A few years ago he was kidnapped by the Chinese, eighteen months ago he was released. He was the one responsible for stopping the string of terrorist attacks led by Abu Fayed. After that, he started a new life."

Shane looked like he was about to explode with anger, Heller began to speak again.

"If Jack Bauer was helping you out, he was sent to you guys by the government. They must of caught wind of what you were doing, and wanted Jack Bauer to get in with you guys so they can figure out what."

Shane slammed his foot, turned to Han's and started screaming,

"AND YOU TRUSTED THIS FUCKING MAN!"

"He was in jail for eight months, how the fuck was I suppose to know."

Shane tapped his foot, holding back his rage.

"You fucked up Hans, you fucked up."

Jack felt his palms starting to sweat as thoughts began to race through his head, he knew he'd have to go after the brothers at one point or another, but not at a time like this. Not when he was surrounded by more than twenty men, he had done some impossible things in his life, but this, this was suicide. Jack clenched his USP and began to think of what to do, his attention was drawn away once the man who had his back towards Jack the whole time began to speak.

"I know Jack Bauer as well, what Secretary Heller is saying is true, Jack is a dangerous man."

Shane looked at Han's smiling,

"You're lucky you're my god damned brother Hans, so fucking lucky."

Glaring back over at Chris, Shane began to speak.

"How do you know him?"

Chris turned himself towards Jack's direction, Jack's jaw dropped when the man finally revealed himself. It was Christopher Henderson. Jack had kept his promise, as he was a man of his word, and helped Henderson fake his own death and disappear, but what were the chances that he'd be here?

"I used to work for the Government as well, I was Jack's superior. I was investigated for some things that I had gotten into, Jack led that investigation leading to me being discharged from my post. After that I took up some work with some people trying to do what was right for our country, got mixed up with the incident that led to Jack being kidnapped by the Chinese. I helped Jack, and I was a wanted man. After I helped him, he arranged for me to disappear like he had done months before."

Shane quickly pointed his gun in Henderson's direction,

"How do I know you're not working with Jack right now?"

Henderson sort of chuckled, and stepped towards Shane.

"Do you think if I was working with him, I'd just up an reveal my whole life story like that to you? Come on man, think logically here."

Shane was trying to process everything in his head, he then looked at Hans and began to speak on the headset.

"I'm going to send Hans back up the elevator, I want you to send a search team down here to find Bauer. We do not leave until he is found."

"Roger that, I'll send five men down."

Hans nodded,

"I will fix this."

"You better."

Hans jogged off, a few seconds later he was back in the area. Shane looked up at him,

"What is it?"

"Jack has to be down here, Anatoli is dead."

Shane ran his hand along his forehead, wiping the sweat from his brow, clearly frustrated.

"Bauer is down here, send ten men down, now!"

"Roger."

"Hans, go send the elevator up, we need to start moving out."

Heller looked up at Shane,

"What are you going to do with me?"

"You have seen all our faces, you know what I'm going to do."

Shane cocked his gun back, and pointed it towards Heller's head. Jack needed Heller alive, and this was the only chance he had to stop it. Jack quickly hopped up from behind the cubicle, fired a round in the direction of the group, and quickly ran to his left, staying out of view. Shane and his men all drew their weapons in the direction the shot had come from and began to fire. After a couple shots Shane screamed,

"Hold your fire!"

The fire stopped, Shane pressed the button on his radio.

"Jack, come out now, and I will guarantee the safety of Secretary Heller."

Jack had found a series of pipes providing the warehouse with water, he managed to slide under them, but he still had a view of everything that was going on. After catching his breath he began to speak,

"He saw all of you guys, I think we know what you're going to do. Let him go first."

Shane smiled,

"I underestimated you Jack. But I do have a question, do you love your country that much that you wasted eight months of your life to protect it?"

"It's true that I do love my country, but it's more than my country. It's my daughter, my grandson, and the other grandchild she is going to be bringing into this world. I do it for them, so they can live in a world that is safe, where they don't have to watch over their shoulders."

"This country you claim to love, was it not the same country that forced you to be kidnapped and tortured by the Chinese for those couple of years?"

"Like I said, it's a lot more than the country."

Jack could hear the footsteps of the men running into the main part of the building. Shane walked over to two cases,

"I don't know if you can see these cases Jack, but inside these two cases, are the things that will unravel this very country, in matter of fact, the world. This world will once and for all be run by the people who work their ass off everyday to make it turn. I'm giving this world back to the rightful owners, the people Jack, the people. Why don't you come and join me, help me make this world right?"

Jack rolled out from the other side of the pipes and climbed up them, holding on with one arm, while the other holding his gun, aimed towards the group. Jack counted the men, it was twelve vs. one, and Jack had to make sure five people lived. Chase, and he needed Heller, Hans, Shane, and Henderson alive. Jack squeezed the trigger and sent a bullet into one of the men's head. Jack quickly let go of the pipes, falling about fifteen feet down to the ground. Gun fire broke out and Jack could hear bullets piercing the pipes, water started to sew out of them. Jack pushed him self up, and quickly side stepped to the right side of the pipes. Three men were coming towards him, Jack popped out, fired a shot into ones stomach, another ones head, and before he could get off the next shot, bullets were whizzing by his head. Jack quickly sprinted towards the back of the warehouse, ducking down behind more boxes.

"That's three down Shane, only nine left."

Shane began laughing over the headset,

"Nine vs. one Jack, I'll take those chances."

Jack smirked to himself,

"Apparently you don't know me."

Jack saw two men come around the corner,

"This is what I'm talking about, your men running toward where I just was, I'm long gone from that spot."

Jack knew Shane wouldn't fall for it, but the two men may, and they did. After the words left Jack's mouth they both turned around, Jack jumped up, shooting both of them in the back of their heads. He ducked back down, ran out from behind the boxes and to the side wall of the warehouse.

"That's seven left Shane."

Hans looked at Shane,

"Let's take the weapons and run, were doing no good sitting here."

Shane nodded,

"You're lucky Jack, I will find you, and I will kill you."

"I wouldn't count on it, Shane."

Shane aimed his gun towards Heller's head, before he could fire Henderson kicked the gun out of Shane's hand and punched him in the head. Shane fell back, Hans pointed his gun towards Henderson but he grabbed Heller and dove behind some boxes before he could get a shot off. Hans grabbed Shane, both of them grabbing one of the cases,

"Let's get out of here."

The two men ran off, leaving Jack, Chase, Henderson, and Heller to fend them selves against the seven hired men. Jack ran over to Chase and grabbed him by his arm pulling him up, as soon as he did gun fire broke out. Jack threw Chase around the corner and pressed himself up against the wall. All seven of the men were running in his direction. Jack ejected his clip, and inserted a fresh one. Before the men could reach Jack, Henderson jumped up from behind the box and started firing, taking two down. Jack popped out and fired as well, dropping another three. Henderson got one last shot off, killing the sixth. Jack ran out from behind the wall, and tackled the seventh man, sending him flying to the ground. Jack got on top of him, wrapped his neck in his arms, and quickly snapped it, making the mans body go limp. During the commotion, Heller managed to get him self up, and run towards the elevator. After everyone was dead, Jack ran over to Chase and picked him up,

"How did you manage to get here?"

Chase sighed heavily,

"Long story short, a man I was trying to take down was connected to them, when we moved in on him we got ambushed, they kept me alive, because of that Chris guy. He had them keep me alive, he also killed the man who was going to kill me. But what I don't get after hearing his story, is why is he trying to help you now?"

Jack peered over at Henderson, who wasn't trying to run, nor trying to hurt Jack, just standing there.

"I don't know."

Jack raised his gun in front of him, walking towards Henderson.

"Drop your weapon Christopher!"

"If I wanted to kill you Jack, I'd have already done so, we both need each other here. And we don't have much time."

"I'm not going to hurt you, drop your weapon and then I will talk to you."

"Drop your weapon as well."

Jack looked down at his USP, let his fingers go loose, sending the weapon to the cold cement floor. Henderson did the same,

"Why are you here?"

"The same reason you are Jack, I want to stop what they are doing."

Jack walked towards Chris, sort of smirking,

"I'm sorry Christopher, I find that hard to believe. I let you go, like I said I would. You started a new life, what doest this have to do with you?"

"I have always been a Patriot Jack, always. But I realized the way I was trying to make this country a better place was the wrong way, and when I heard about this, I knew this was my way to help this country. Me and you are both in the same position, we keep getting drawn into things, and now we need each other."

"You weren't dragged into anything Christopher, and I don't need you."

"You're a wanted man Jack, have you forgotten? You're going to need all the help you can get. Now we can sit here and debate this, or one of us can go after Heller, and the others after the brothers."

Unfortunately he was right, Jack needed all the help he could get ,and for now, that help would have to come from Henderson.

"If you want to help, I'm sending Chase with you, I need someone keeping an eye on you."

"That's fine Jack, who do you want to take?"

"I'm going after Heller, you two get the brothers."

Chris nodded,

"Do you know what kind of weapons they stole?"

Jack shook his head,

"No, that's why we need Heller. Let's go to the mall's security center, we should be able to get surveillance of where they went."

Christopher nodded,

"Let's go."

Jack, Chase, and Christopher all headed towards the elevator leading back up to Best Buy.

10:59:57

10:59:58

10:59:59

11:00:00


	9. 11:00 PM To 12:00 AM

**The Following Takes Place Between 11:00 PM And 12:00 AM**

Jack's eyes scanned the elevator as he tried to process everything that has happened to him in the past few hours. Broke out of a prison, killed people who didn't deserve to die, discovered a weapons base that was being run outside of the President's orders, watched another person he knew die. Erin, poor Erin. It is true that the two never really got along, but what had she done to deserve that? Nothing, nothing at all. And then, finding out that James Heller was behind the weapons facility, Jack knew Heller, and knew he'd do anything to protect his country, he was the political version of himself. Jack sort of smirked to him self, thinking how similar he and Heller were, they both get their hands dirty when no one else wanted to, but now Heller was the reason the country was in trouble. And then there was Christopher Henderson, the man Jack hated so much, but he was a man of his word, and he promised Henderson he would help him disappear for his help, and he kept that promise. But now Henderson was back in the equation, and Jack didn't like it. The elevator stopped, and the bell chimed. Jack clutched his USP and looked at both Chase and Henderson,

"You both follow my lead."

Jack looked at Henderson,

"I want you behind me, and Chase behind you so he can keep an eye on you."

"Jack, me and.."

Jack grabbed Henderson by the throat and slammed him against the elevator wall.

"I don't know what you want, all I know is you're responsible for the death of my best friends, and other innocent Americans. You may have changed, but until I know I can trust you, Chase or myself will be keeping a close eye on you, do you got it?"

Henderson tried pushing back, but Jack over powered him. Henderson had taught Jack everything he knew, but Henderson was getting older, and knew he couldn't out power Jack. He nodded and Jack let got of his neck,

"Now, let's go."

Jack pressed the open button and the doors slowly slid open, Jack held his gun straight out in front of him, the warehouse was empty, except for the bodies Jack had left behind earlier. He slowly stepped out of the elevator, checking every possible location where someone could be hiding, satisfied that the room was empty, he gave Chase and Henderson the signal to move out. Jack knelt down and crept across the warehouse quietly, sidestepping to the warehouse doors that led into the main store. Jack peered through the windows and the store seemed completely empty, Jack had no reason to believe that anyone was still there, they had most likely wanted to get away as fast as they could with the two weapons. Jack flung the warehouse doors open, and busted into a full sprint towards the front of the store. Half way to the customer service desk, Jack heard burst of gun fire. He quickly stopped, and pressed his back against a shelf of DVD's. He looked Chase and Henderson both in the eyes and gave them a signal to go around the other side. They both left Jack's view, and Jack crept along the DVD shelf, to the other end until he could see over the customer service desk. There were two men standing on the desks, killing the employees and customers one by one. Jack saw Chase and Henderson across from him.

"I want at least one of them alive, I'm going to move in, don't fire unless I tell you, understood?"

The two nodded, and Jack nodded back. Jack quickly flung himself out from the DVD isle and fired at one of the men piercing him in the leg. After a painful cry from the man, they both turned around and started firing at Jack. Jack quickly dove behind the Loss Prevention desk, and took cover. Jack shouted out over the gun fire,

"Now!"

Chase came out from the DVD isle and shot one of the men three times in the chest. Jack hopped up, threw his gun at the mans head sending him to the ground. He then dove over the customer service desk, landing on top of him and repeatedly punched him in the face until he was unconscious. Jack stood up and looked at the crowd, they managed to kill another five or six people before Jack could get to them. Jack wiped the sweat from his forehead, a woman from the crowd began to scream.

"That's one of the terrorist!"

Jack looked at the crowd and began to shout,

"I am a federal agent, I'm not with the terrorist."

The crowd seemed to quite a little, until a man spoke up,

"You're a federal agent and you let these people die?!"

"I know none of you will understand, but I'm sorry. There was nothing I could do, the situation was completely out of my hands."

Jack looked over towards the Best Buy employees,

"How do I get the gate open so I can go to mall security?"

"The manager has the keys."

Jack remembered the manage that Shane had killed and nodded, walking over to Chase and Henderson, Jack began to speak.

"I want both of you to work on that man, see if you can get any information out of him. I'm going to mall security so I can look at the tapes. Also, make sure no one gets out or calls the cops, I can't have the police here until I contact the President and let him know I'm no longer undercover."

Chase looked up at Jack,

"Why can't the police be involved?"

"They still think I'm a felon, who broke a now known terrorist out of jail. I won't step two feet out of this place."

Chase nodded and Henderson looked at Jack,

"We need to go after Heller."

Jack shot Henderson a cold look,

"You think I don't know that? Once I find out what direction both parties went in, I will be going after Heller, you two will be going after the brothers. I'll be back in five minutes."

Jack ran to the managers room, grabbed the keys to the gate. He quickly ran to the gate, inserted the key into the slot and turned it. The motorized gate started to rise, once up enough for Jack to walk through, he ducked down and ran through it.

11:08:34

The Los Angeles airport was surprisingly not busy, Kim noticed this as she was easily able to walk straight up to the reception desk, not having to avoid people. As she approached the desk, the clerk smiled at her warmly and said,

"How may I help you?"

"I need the next available flight to New York."

The woman looked down at the computer then back up at Kim,

"One moment please."

Kim nodded and the woman started typing on the computer. After a few seconds the woman looked back up at Kim,

"We have one seat available on a twelve o five flight."

"I'll take it."

The woman smiled,

"Sure, give me one second to put this in the computer and you'll be all set."

"Thank you."

Kim reached down into her pocketbook to pull out her credit card.

Jack sprinted down the hall of the mall, which seemed to be empty, that was until he ran into a janitor. The man looked up at him, Jack stopped.

"Sir, may I ask…"

Jack interrupted,

"No time, I'm a federal agent. I need to know where the mall security station is."

The man eyed down Jack for a second, wondering if he should believe him.

"Look, there is no time for this, where is the station?"

The janitor turned, and pointed to his left,

"Down the hall about thirty more feet, on the left."

"Thank you."

Jack kicked into a sprint again, reaching the turn he went in. At the end of this hall was a door that read "Security Office." Jack started banging on the door waiting for a response. No body answered and Jack banged on the door again, finally a voice emitted from the other side.

"Johnson is that you? How many damn times are you going to loose your keys?"

"My name is Jack Bauer, I'm with the Counter Terrorist Unit, please open the door."

The security guard, who was about 5'9 283 lbs was shocked to hear what he heard, but quickly opened the door and looked at Jack.

"Counter Terrorist Unit?"

Jack pushed his way past the security guard, turned and faced him. Looking at his name tag Jack learned that his name was Steve. Jack looked him straight in the eyes,

"Steve, I need to look at your security footage for all exits of the store."

The security guard was nervous, but he knew he had a job to do, and he would do it.

"Sir, I'm going to need to see some identification."

"There is no time.. I need to.."

"I said, I need to see I.D."

At this point Jack was getting pissed, and lost his temper.

"I NEED TO SEE YOUR SECUIRTY FOOTAGE NOW!"

The guard went to grab his security baton, before he could clutch one of his fat fingers around it, Jack quickly drew his USP and pointed it at Steve's head. He immediately began to shake and beg for his life.

"I'm not going to shoot you! I just need to see your security footage. Now, can you do that for me?"

"S.sss.. Sure.. Over here."

The heavyset man waddled over to the monitors and clicked a few buttons. Every exit from the mall was now on the screens and Jack said,

"Rewind them all to about five or ten minutes ago. And do it slowly."

The guard followed his command, and did exactly what Jack asked. After a few minutes of watching the monitors Jack pointed to monitor four.

"Stop, there."

The guard stopped the video feed, and Jack saw the two brothers leave the area. Three minutes later Jack saw Heller leave from the same exit, get in a car and take off.

"I need those two videos uploaded to a phone memory card, now!"

Steve fumbled through some drawers in the desk he was sitting at and pulled out a memory card, slid it into the computer, saved the files and handed them to Jack.

"Thank you."

"What was this all about?"

"There was a terrorist attack at Best Buy, we need to find the men responsible."

The guard looked dumbfounded,

"Wha… what?"

"Call the cops."

Jack turned, and quickly turned off back towards Best Buy.

Chase stood over the captured man, sending his fist flying into his temple once again,

"What do they plan on doing with the weapons that were stolen?"

He spit out blood and looked at Chase,

"Nothing, I will tell you nothing!"

Chase punched him one more time, Henderson grabbed his shoulder to pull Chase off. Chase quickly turned and pushed Henderson off him,

"Don't touch me."

Henderson smiled,

"You got the right idea kid, but I thought working with Jack would of taught you something."

Chase stood all the way up, and looked at Henderson with a cold glare.

"Oh yeah? What's that?"

"The same thing I taught him, physical force is probably the worst way to get the answers out of somebody. You need to mess with their head."

"Seeing as we have nothing on this guy, there isn't much I can do now is there?"

Chase pulled out his handgun, turned back towards the man and pointed his gun at his head.

"WHAT DO THEY PLAN ON DOING?!"

"You're not going to shoot me…"

"Oh yeah?"

Chase put his gun against the mans shoulder, and pulled the trigger. The man jerked his head back and screamed in pain. Chase dug the barrel of his gun into the man's shoulder, he began kicking and screaming more. Behind them, someone started yelling.

"Chase!"

Chase turned, and saw Jack standing behind him.

"Jack, did you find out where they went?

"I got video, I need to send it to district and have them look it up. I will do that in a second, we need to get out of here though, before the cops show up."

"What about him?"

Jack looked at the man they had captured, then back at the customers in the store. Jack wanted to do nothing more than kill him, but know it would be much worse where ever he ends up going.

"I'm keeping him here, the cops will be here in a few minutes. You're all safe now, I'm sorry you had to go through this."

Jack nodded to Chase and Henderson,

"Let's go. Chase, give me your phone."

Chase tossed Jack his phone, and the group ran towards the exit. Once they reached the exit, Jack suddenly stopped short when he saw what was awaiting him outside. N.Y.P.D. had the whole area blocked off, cruisers, SUV'S, and trucks scattered all over the parking lot. Every police officer was standing about thirty feet from the doors, M14's, shotguns, handguns all aimed in Jack's direction. Jack looked back at the hostages.

"Damn it! Someone called the cops!"

Jack stared into the army of New York City Police officers, he knew by now they probably had the whole mall parking lot blocked off, and there was no way he could get out, he couldn't call the President, if he reached for his phone, he'd be shot.

"Jack Bauer, we have you completely surrounded, come out with your hands up!"

Jack looked around, trying to come up with a way to get out, one thought had entered his mind, but he didn't want to resort to that.

"What do we do now?" Chase asked.

"I'm thinking, I can't call the President. If I reach for my phone right now, I'll be shot."

Henderson came up with an idea,

"Just let them bring you in, then call the President with your phone call."

"It will be at least two hours until I get a phone call, we don't have the time."

"Mr. Bauer, I'm giving you one minute to come out side, and surrender, or we will be forced to make an entrance."

Jack looked at Chase, swallowed hard and would never forgive himself for what he was about to do.

"Chase, go grab somebody's kid up at the customer service desk."

Chase look at Jack, dumbfounded,

"You're not going to do what I think you're going to do are you?"

"Just get me a kid, now!"

Chase slowly walked away and went to the customer service desk. Looking at Henderson Jack spoke again,

"Go to the door, tell them were coming out."

Henderson slowly walked to the doors, with his hands raised in the air. He reached the door and it slowly slid open, once on the outside the officer leading the standoff spoke into his megaphone.

"Tell Jack Bauer to come out, and this will all be over."

"He's coming out in a few seconds, just hold on."

Chase came up to Jack with a little kid, short black hair, glasses, green eyes. Jack's stomach began to twist and turn, Jack knelt down next to the kid, who was now sobbing, grabbing his shoulder he began to ask the little boy some questions.

"Don't be scared, I'm not going to hurt you. What's your name?"

"Di.. Dillon.."

"Good, now Dillon, how old are you?"

"Seven.."

"Good, I'm about to do something that may seem scary, But I need you to know I will not hurt you. Ok? Can you be brave for me?"

Dillon nodded, and Jack slowly grabbed him and turned him around, pulling him into his chest. Jack lifted the boy up, put his gun on safety, and pointed it to the back of Dillon's head.

"Be brave, ok?"

He nodded, and Jack walked back into the line of sight of the officers. All of them looked startled, staring at Jack waiting for there next orders.

"Hold on Jack, no one needs to get hurt!"

Jack walked towards the door with Chase in front of him, opening the door Jack walked out in front of Chase.

"Step back!"

"Jack.. Think about what you're doing, he's a kid."

"Step back, and lower your weapons. Or I swear to god I'll kill him!"

"Jack.."

"Back, lower your weapons. NOW!"

The officer looked around at all the men who were with him, he lowered his megaphone and began shouting.

"Weapons down! Weapons down! Back off now, back off!"

All the officers quickly complied, the main one raised his megaphone.

"Ok Jack, we did what you wanted. Let the boy go."

"Have one of your men bring me one of your SUV'S and a shotgun.."

"Jack, you have do something for me in order for this to work…"

"The boy is my only leverage! I'm not letting him go and you know that! The car and shotgun, now!"

Chase looked at Jack out of the corner of his eyes, wondering how Jack can put himself in these kind of positions, he knew Jack would do what he had to do to make sure this country was safe. But, it just boggled his mind how he can do the things he does to get the job done. Chase snapped out of it, and placed him self back in the situation at hand. One of the officer's was entering an SUV and slowly started driving over to their location.

"Chase, once the officer gets out of the car, take him captive. I'm letting the boy go."

Chase nodded, the SUV pulled up beside them. The officer got out, Chase went up to him, grabbed him from the back and pointed his gun to the back of the officers head. Jack knelt down with the little boy and yelled.

"I'm showing some good faith, I'm trading your man for this boy."

Jack let Dillon go, rubbed his shoulder and said,

"Go back to mommy now, everything is alright."

Dillon turned, and quickly sprinted back into Best Buy. Jack looked back up,

"Now, we are leaving. If you make any attempt to follow us, I swear to god he dies! Do you understand me?!"

"I understand, just take it easy."

Jack walked over to the drivers seat, inside was the shotgun he asked for. Jack moved it over, and got into the vehicle. Henderson followed, as did Chase in the back with the officer. Once they were all in, Jack slammed on the gas and the Ford Explorer sped out of the parking lot.

The bullpen of CTU New York was cluttered with regular employees, and the higher ups from division scrambling around the building working as hard as they could to get their system back online. They had gotten the lighting system back up, but the computers and phones for the most part were still down. Karen Hayes and Bill Buchanan walked right into the midst of the chaos. Taking in their surroundings, they prepared themselves for the tasks that lay ahead. They were interrupted by a tall, fairly skinny man with pepper gray hair walking up to them.

"Karen Hayes and Bill Buchanan I presume?"

Bill nodded and looked the man in the eyes,

"Yes, you must be Director Callahan from division."

"Shaun Callahan, pleased to meet you."

Shaun extended his hand, shaking Bill's then Karen's.

"I am confused as to why Palmer wanted you to run this though."

Bill looked at Shaun,

"A situation has arose, a certain individual that we are friends with is involved. He wanted us here, asked the President for our assistance and he called us. I will brief you right now on the whole situation. But what I tell you stays between the two of us, until the President makes his official announcement on the situation."

"I understand."

"Good."

Karen looked at Bill,

"I'm going to find out where we are with getting the computers back online."

Bill nodded in agreement,

"I'll come find you in a few minutes."

Karen turned the other direction and walked away. Before Shaun and Bill went into the conference room. Shaun asked,

"Do you mind me asking who this "individual you speak of is?"

"A man named Jack Bauer."

Shaun looked as if he was pondering something, then looked back at Bill.

"I've heard about him, he has a pretty notorious record behind him."

"He may not go by the book, but he gets the best results I've ever seen anyone get. Now, shall we?"

Shaun lead the way to the conference room.

The SUV came to a screeching halt, as Jack slammed his foot on the breaks. Jack looked at Henderson, then at Chase still holding the officer at gunpoint. Following closely behind, Jack could hear sirens blaring behind him. Jack handed Chase his phone back and began to speak.

"You and Henderson need to get back to CTU with the chip that is inside your phone. That has the surveillance video from the mall. CTU should be able to use this to get both the brothers, and Heller on satellite."

Jack looked at Henderson,

"Give me your phone."

Henderson reached into his pocket, grabbed his cell phone and Handed it to Jack. Jack called Chase's phone so he would have the number.

"Once CTU gets both of them on satellite, I need you to call me. I will go after Heller, from there, you two go after the brothers."

"What are you going to do?"

"I need to get away from the police, once I'm somewhere safe I will call President Palmer and have him call off the search for me."

The police sirens were now uncomfortably close. Jack strapped the shotgun around his shoulder opened his door and hopped out of the SUV,

"Take this vehicle, go to CTU now. Call me."

Chase climbed to the drivers seat of the car from the back. The SUV sped off and Jack stood there. Looking around, thinking where he could go. Out of no where a cop car sped onto the road Jack was on, barreling towards him. Thinking quickly, Jack spun around, planted his heels into the ground and pushed off as hard as he could down the dark alley ways of New York City. Jack heard the police car behind him getting closer and closer. As he ran more he started grasping for air. Jack looked behind him, the car was no more than thirty feet behind him now, and would be taking him down within the next ten seconds. Jack looked to his left, noticed a dumpster sitting underneath a fire escape later, and quickly turned left. Pushing off the ground as hard as he could, Jack lept on top of the dumpster. Planting his feet on the dumpster, Jack quickly jumped up again, grabbing the wrung of the ladder and pulled himself up. The police car behind him came to a stop, Jack could hear the doors closing. Once Jack pulled himself all the way up, he froze as he heard the words.

"Freeze, now!"

Raising his hands in the air, Jack turned around to see two cops with their guns pointed directly at him.

"Drop your weapons, and come down. Now!"

Jack hesitated for a second,

"Fine! Just don't shoot."

"Drop them!"

Jack started removing the shoulder strap. Clutching the shotgun by its handle, Jack had it completely lowered by his side.

"Drop it!"

Before the officers could react, Jack jumped backwards from the fire escape, crashing through a window that lead into someone apartment. Landing on his back, hitting the floor with a thud, Jack quickly pushed himself up and turned around. He seemed to be in someone's bed room, but the inside was empty. Directly upstairs he could hear someone moaning, and the headboard of a bed slamming against a wall. Jack quickly shook his head and thought "at least someone is having a good night." He flung open the door to the apartment which led out to a hall way. One end of the hall lead downstairs, back onto the street. The other upstairs, to the roof. Jack quickly sprinted towards the stairs that would bring him to the roof of the apartment building.

11:59:57

11:59:58

11:59:59

12:00:00


End file.
